or not the weather whirled him to another world, for he felt nothing could lower his lore, and he knew he was the principal man in the principal city where the prince palled of his pleasures. I will not," said he, "meddle with the medal which in the matin was placed on the matting near the mat in the room." The Mayor then mounted the mare, soothed with, sooth to say, the liniment which covered his lineaments-the unconscious innocents in their innocence airily cheering his hairy steed. They then chanted a ballad, the winner being decided by ballot, and of the idle fellow they made an idol, in a manner more wholly than holy in those islands which were near the Highlands. Some gambled, others gambolled, and corals being given to the choral, one was seized with coughing enough to suggest for such chest a coffin. Juvenal, who was not juvenile, looked gluttonous through his glutinous skin; he laughed at the jester, who by his gesture mimicked a juggler severing the jugular of an imposture as great as the impostor.

EXERCISE II.

The sailor cried to the ship's master, "Sail her," who was silly enough to set sail-ah!-for the Scilly Isles. The vessel soon became stationary, for there was no stationery on board; so they bored the principal officer to forego his principle and become an abettor in a better scheme. He had, however, vowed at the altar not to alter his course, and complied only through coarse threats, which accrued from a crude crew, who went aboard the ship to brighten the barren prospect of the Baron's grounds at Brighton. Amongst them was a calender, who was examining a calendar to ascertain a certain day when the recruits of the Queen, around her round throne, of the late levy, were on guard at her levee. A little boy fastened his boat to a buoy, and the seaman vented his choler on him by seizing his shirt-collar, although he was a Briton on the coast of Great Britain. He pulled a curl from the hair of the girl who, with her finger in her ear, stood in arrear, in a rear guard, and saw her, with tears in her eyes, her rise, at the word arise. For all that, he missed her in the mist; and the Signor, who was his senior in years, said he had paid a price enough for such a prize, of which he had been by four before apprized. "Take up and tack up your sheath and sheathe your sword," he said, "or moan to my own blow, and end your tour in yonder tower." "Cease," answered the seaman, 66 or see, man, you shall be seized and placed in iron fetters, as sure as I on this deck stand. "Such monitory advice I would take, was the reply, "were it a monetary transaction; but I can't lose, for a loose word, such a genius for such a genus as you.' "As a shoe,' did you say?" "You will not elicit an answer, for you are, as you well know, on a sea in which you carry on an illicit traffic." Ill, is it,' did you say? You're in imminent danger, my eminent friend!" "Except you explain, I will not accept of any apology." "Is he," interrupted a deaf gentleman, "talking about a poll, Apollo, an apple, or applying an appellation?" "In the whole extent to which my experience extends, I know of nothing wittier extant than the wit here," chimed in a fop. "You've broke my doze with your dose of abuse," cried another old " and

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man,

I will give you your desert at my dessert." "Which," chimed in the wit, "we'll desert, with all due to you, and in deference to the difference of opinion, for which we eare not a pin yon." The violence of this irruption was like a volcanic eruption. "You're as full of folly as a fool. To speak aloud should not be allowed, if it affects the good effects of the voyage," whispered an old maid, "particularly when one is going to a capital berth in the capitol, at a famous salary, to raise celery, and to write a treatise on the treaties of miners' minors." "This is a specious way of settling a quarrel," said the sailor, walking the spacious deck, winking as he heard the tinkling and the tuning of a viol, en which during the entertainment the captain, obeying his impulse, vented his vial of wrath.

EXERCISE III.

My child, perhaps my want of money you have heard on, and, pretty bird, you are a pretty burden. Each drawing room is followed by a levy: so you see, it falls a little heavy upon me. Plain cotton dresses, too, would make you wince. Fancy! a princess scrubbing at the prints, and in your mirror beauty you descry, enough for Pekin is your speaking eye; it lights up the Electric at the full, and beats the Bude light, it's so beautiful. But, though with manners rude you are urbane; "Her bane, indeed! the fact I know with pain." And sure, my child, as you use hook and eye, that fish will tumble off the hook and die. The lamp's there in the niche, stretch forth your arm to seize it, I have such an itching palm. Now then at once to meet your wretched fate put down the lamp, your arm you'll amputate. To cry "ah! where? is very well for me, but I am not aware where she can be. Where is his house; and where, yes, where is she? Where is his mansion? Does the man shun me? Who was it let you four in? answer that, Sir; That's altogether foreign to the matter.

EXERCISES ON CLIMAXES.

'Tis listening fear and dumb amazement all, when to the startled eye the sudden glance appears far south, eruptive through the cloud; and following slower in explosion vast, the thunder raises his tremendous voice. At first heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven, the tempest growls: but as it nearer comes, and rolls its awful burden on the wind, the lightnings flash a larger curve, and more the noise astounds; till over head a sheet of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts and opens wider; shuts and opens still, expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze: follows the loosen'd aggravated roar, enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal crush'd horrible, convulsing heaven and earth. An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; a station like the herald Mercury new lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; a combination and a form indeed, where every god did seem to set his seal, to give the world assurance of a man. I conjure you by that which you profess, (howe'er you come to know it) answer me: tho' you untie the winds and let them fight against the churches; tho' the yesty waves confound and swallow navigation up;

tho' bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down; tho' castles topple on their warders' heads; tho' palaces and pyramids do slope their heads to their foundations; tho' the treasure of nature's germins tumble altogether, even till destruction sicken, answer me to what I ask you.

PROSE PIECES.

RHETORICAL EXTRACTS.

EDUCATION.

Mere reading and writing is not education; it would be quite as reasonable to call bricks and mortar, architecture-oils and colours, art -reeds and cat-gut, music-or the child's spelling-books the works of Shakespeare, Milton, or Bacon-as to call the lowest rudiments of education, education, and to visit on that most abused and slandered word their failure in any instance; and precisely because they were not education; because, generally speaking, the word has been understood in that sense a great deal too long; because education for the business of life, and for the due cultivation of domestic virtues, is at least as important from day to day to the grown person as to the child; because real education, in the strife and contention for a livelihood, and the consequent necessity incumbent on a great number of young persons to go into the world when they are very young, is extremely difficult. It is because of these things that I look upon mechanics' institutions and athenæums as vitally important to the well-being of society. It is because the rudiments of education may there be turned to good account in the acquisition of sound principles, and of the great virtues, hope, faith, and charity, to which all our knowledge tends; it is because of that, I take it, that you have met in education's name to-night.

It is a great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I do in behalf of an infant institution: a remarkably fine child enough, of a vigorous constitution, but an infant still. I esteem myself singularly fortunate in knowing it before its prime, in the hope that I may have the pleasure of remembering in its prime, and when it has attained to its lusty maturity, that I was a friend of its youth. It has already passed through some of the disorders to which children are liable; it succeeded to an elder brother of a very meritorious character, but of rather a weak constitution, and which expired when about twelve months old, from, it is said, a destructive habit of getting up early in the morning: it succeeded this elder brother, and has fought manfully through a sea of troubles. Its friends have often been much concerned for it; its pulse has been exceedingly low, being only 1250, when it was expected to have been 10,000; several relations and friends have even gone so far as to walk off once or twice in the melancholy belief that it was dead. Through all that, assisted by the indomitable energy of one or two nurses, to whom it can never be sufficiently grateful, it came triumphantly, and now, of all the youthful members of its family I ever saw, it has the strongest attitude, the healthiest look, the brightest

and most cheerful air. I find the institution nobly lodged; I find it with a reading-room, a coffee-room, and a news-room; I find it with lectures given and in progress, in sound, useful, and well-selected subjects; I find it with morning and evening classes for mathematics, logic, grammar, music, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, attended by upwards of five hundred persons; but, best and first of all, and what is to me more satisfactory than anything else in the history of the institution, I find that all this has been mainly achieved by the young men of Glasgow themselves, with very little assistance. And as the axiom, "Heaven helps those who help themselves," is truer in no case than it is in this, I look to the young men of Glasgow, from such a past and such a present, to a noble future. Everything that has been done in any other athenæum, I confidently expect to see done here; and when that shall be the case, and when there shall be great cheap schools in connection with the institution, and when it has bound together for ever all its friends, and brought over to itself all those who look upon it as an objectionable institution-then, and not till then, I hope the young men of Glasgow will rest from their labours, and think their study done.-Charles Dickens's Speech at the Opening of the Glasgow Athenæum.

REST.

And

The cause of unrest is inward discord. We are going on in our selfishness. We stand, as Balaam stood, against the angel of the Lord, pressing on whilst the angel of Love stands against us. Just as the dove struggling against the storm, feeble and tired, is almost spent, until gradually, as if by inspiration, it has descended to the lower atmosphere, and so avoided the buffeting of the tempest above, and is then borne on by the wind of heaven in entire repose; like that is the rest of the soul. While we are unreconciled, the Love of God stands against us, and, by His Will, as long as man refuses to take up that yoke of His, he is full of discord; he is like the dove struggling with the elements aloft, as yet unconscious of the calm there is below. you must make no compromise in taking up the burden of the Lord. Lastly, unrest comes from dissatisfaction with outward circumstances. Part, perhaps the greater part, of our misery here, comes from overestimation of ourselves. We are slaves to vanity and pride. We think we are not in the right station; our genius has been misunderstood; we have been slighted, we have been passed by, we have not been rewarded as we ought to have been. So long as we have this false opinion of ourselves, it is impossible for us to realize true rest. Sinners in a world of love, encircling you round on every side; blessings infinite upon infinite, and that again multiplied by infinity: God loves you; God fills you with enjoyment! Unjustly, unfairly treated in this world of love! Once let a man know for himself what God is, and then in that he will find peace. It will be the dawn of an everlasting day of calmness and serenity. I speak to some who have felt the darkness, the clouds, and the dreariness of life, whose affections have been blighted, who feel a discord and confusion in their being. To some to whom the world, lovely though it be, is such that they are obliged to say, "I see, I do not feel, how beautiful it is."

Brother men, there is Rest in Christ, because He is Love; because His are the everlasting Verities of Humanity. God does not cease to be the God of Love because men are low, sad, and desponding. In the performance of duty, in meekness, in trust in God, is our rest-our only rest. It is not in understanding a set of doctrines; not in an outward comprehension of the "scheme of salvation," that rest and peace are to be found, but in taking up, in all lowliness and meekness, the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."-Robertson.

MANIFESTATION OF GOD.

There is yet one aspect in which the manifestation of God in Christ Jesus may be contemplated-viz., that which is presented by His sufferings and death.

To our human conceptions, the noblest expression of love is that in which it assumes the form of suffering or self-sacrifice. Affection for an earthly friend is then most beautiful when it appears in the aspect of self-devotion of personal cost and endurance voluntarily borne on behalf of its object. Integrity, Piety, Reverence for truth or goodness, ever call forth our deepest veneration when they are seen withstanding the shock of calamity, unmoved by pain and hardship, and calmly submitting to every conceivable sacrifice, rather than that truth should be tampered with or rectitude infringed. In order, therefore, to our connecting with the character of God, this our grandest human ideal of love and holiness, it is necessary that there should be granted to us a manifestation of the Infinite Jehovah, in some such form as that we could conceive of Him as submitting to suffering, subjecting Himself to cost, undergoing sacrifice for the salvation of souls, and for the preservation inviolate of the honour of truth and righteousness.

Now, nowhere else than in the sufferings and self-sacrifice of Him who was Deity Incarnate could such a manifestation be afforded;-by no other act of divine beneficence could this expression of love in God be reached. For no mere gift of benignity can be conceived of as impoverishing a divine giver, or requiring a personal sacrifice on the part of One who has the resources of the universe at His disposal. The beauty and bounty which, with so lavish and unwearied munificence, God has for ages been scattering over the face of creation, have not left Him the poorer-have not detracted one iota from His boundless wealth. The ceaseless stream of blessing leaves the inexhaustible fountain as capable of flowing still. The beams of beneficence poured from the everlasting Sun diminish not its power to shine. The gift of a world were no sacrifice to Him who has but to speak, and worlds of rarer beauty and glory fall from His open hand. In creation and providence, in short, there is never conveyed to the mind any sense of effort-any impression of expense or sacrifice on the part of the Infinite Creator.

But it is different when we turn to the sacrifice of Christ. Viewed merely as the gift of God to man, in Christ Jesus we behold the Infinite Benefactor surrendering for our sake, from the treasury of His goodness,