THOUGHTFUL EXERCISE THE in reality, proper exercise has not been

carrying our instruments.
The conver-
sation of a friend is, in the same way,
a powerful alleviator of the fatigue of
walking.

[SIR JOHN HERSCHEL.]

me

THE LOVE OF READING. The same important principle was im"IF I were to pray for a taste which plied in the advice which the Spectator should stand me in stead under every tells us was given by a physician to one variety of circumstances, and be a source of the Eastern kings, when he brought of happiness and cheerfulness to him a racket, and told him that the through life, and a shield against its ills, remedy was concealed in the handle, and however things might go amiss, and the could act upon him only by passing into world frown upon me, it would be a taste the palms of his hands when engaged in for reading. I speak of it of course only playing with it—and that, as soon as as a worldly advantage, and not in the perspiration was induced, he might desist slightest degree as superseding or derofor the time, as that would be a proof gating from the higher office and surer of the medicine being received into the and stronger panoply of religious pringeneral system. The effect, we are told, ciples-but as a taste, an instrument, and was marvellous: and, looking to the prina mode of pleasurable gratification. ciple just stated, to the cheerful nervous Give a man this taste, and the means of stimulus arising from the confident ex-gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of pectation of a cure, and to the consequent advantages of exercise thus judiciously managed, we have no reason to doubt that the fable is in perfect accordance

with nature.

making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history-with the wisest, the wittiestThe story of an Englishman who con- with the tenderest, the bravest, and the ceived himself so ill as to be unable to purest characters that have adorned hustir, but who was prevailed upon by his manity. You make him a denizen of all medical advisers to go down from London nations—a contemporary of all ages. The to consult an eminent physician at Inver- world has been created for him. It is ness who did not exist, may serve as hardly possible but the character should another illustration. The stimulus of take a higher and better tone from the expecting the means of cure from the constant habit of associating in thought northern luminary was sufficient to en- with a class of thinkers, to say the least able the patient not only to bear, but to of it, above the average of humanity. It reap benefit from, the exertion of making is morally impossible but that the manthe journey down; and his wrath at find-ners should take a tinge of good breeding ing no such person at Inverness, and and civilisation from having constantly ceiving that he had been tricked, sustained before one's eyes the way in which the him in returning, so that on his arrival best-bred and the best-informed men at home he was nearly cured. Hence have talked and conducted themselves in also the superiority of battledoor and their intercourse with each other. shuttlecock, and similar is a gentle but perfectly irresistible coergames, which require society and some mental stimulus, cion in the habit of reading, well directed, over listless exercise. It is, in fact, a positive misnomer to call a solemn procession exercise. Nature will not be cheated; and the healthful results of complete cheerful exertion will never be obtained where the nervous impulse which animates the muscles is denied.-Principles of Physiology.

per

There

and conduct, which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly, and because it is really the last thing he It cannot, in short, be better summed up than in the words of the Latin poet

over the whole tenor of a man's character

dreams of.

Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.
It civilises the conduct of men-and suffers

them not to remain barbarous." -"Ad- not sink under it. He acquiesced in the dress to the Subscribers to the Windsor and Eton Public Libraries."

[GEORGE COMBE. 1788-1858.] THE POWER OF LOVE IN AWAKING THE DORMANT

FACULTIES.

propriety of her choice, continued to improve, and at last was restored to his family cured. She had a child, and was soon after brought to the same hospital perfectly insane. The young man heard of this event, and was exceedingly anxious to see her; but an interview was denied to him, both on her account and his own. She died. He continued well, and became an active member of society. What a beautiful romance might be founded on this narrative!-Notes on the United States.

[S. T. COLERIDGE. 1772-1834.]

THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE.

IN the course of conversation, a case was mentioned to me as having occurred in the experience of a highly respectable physician, and which was so fully authenticated, that I entertain no doubt of its truth. The physician alluded to had a patient, a young man, who was almost idiotic from the suppression of all his faculties. He never spoke, and never A STRANGER came recommended to a moved voluntarily, but sat habitually with merchant's house at Lubeck. He was his hand shading his eyes. The physician hospitably received; but the house being sent him to walk as a remedial measure. full, he was lodged at night in an apartIn the neighbourhood, a beautiful young ment handsomely furnished, but not often girl of sixteen lived with her parents, and used. There was nothing that struck him used to see the young man in his walks, particularly in the room when left alone, and speak kindly to him. For some till he happened to cast his eyes on a pictime he took no notice of her; but after ture which immediately arrested his atmeeting her for several months, he began tention. It was a single head; but there to look for her, and to feel disappointed was something so uncommon, so frightful if she did not appear. He became so and unearthly, in its expression, though much interested, that he directed his by no means ugly, that he found himself steps voluntarily to her father's cottage, irresistibly attracted to look at it. In fact and gave her bouquets of flowers. By he could not tear himself from the fascidegrees he conversed with her through nation of this portrait, till his imagination the window. His mental faculties were was filled by it, and his rest broken. He roused; the dawn of convalescence ap-retired to bed, dreamed, and awoke from peared. The girl was virtuous, intelligent, and lovely, and encouraged his visits when she was told that she was benefiting his mental health. She asked him if he could read and write? He answered, No. She wrote some lines to him to induce him to learn. This had the desired effect. He applied himself to study, and soon wrote good and sensible letters to her. He recovered his reason. She was married to a young man from the neighbouring city. Great fears were entertained that this event would undo the good which she had accomplished. The young patient sustained a severe shock, but his mind did

time to time with the head glaring on him. In the morning his host saw by his looks that he had slept ill, and inquired the cause, which was told. The master of the house was much vexed, and said that the picture ought to have been removed, that it was an oversight, and that it always was removed when the chamber was used. The picture, he said, was, indeed, terrible to every one; but it was so fine, and had come into the family in so curious a way, that he could not make up his mind to part with it, or to destroy it. The story of it was this:-"My father," said he, was at Hamburgh on business, and, whilst dining at a coffee-house, he

66

visage as it glared upon him; and this
was the picture so drawn. The Italian
said he had struggled long, but life was a
burden which he could now no longer
bear; and he was resolved, when he had
made money enough to return to Rome,
to surrender himself to justice, and ex-
piate his crime on the scaffold.
He gave
the finished picture to my father, in return
for the kindness which he had shown
him."—Table Talk.

[REV. ARCHIBALD ALISON. 1757-1839.]

AUTUMNAL THOUGHTS.

observed a young man of a remarkable appearance enter, seat himself alone in a corner, and commence a solitary meal. His countenance bespoke the extreme of mental distress, and every now and then he turned his head quickly round as if he heard something, then shudder, grow pale, and go on with his meal after an effort as before. My father saw this same man at the same place for two or three successive days, and at length became so much interested about him that he spoke to him. The address was not repulsed, and the stranger seemed to find some comfort from the tone of sympathy and kindness which my father used. He was an Italian, well informed, poor, but not destitute, THERE is an eventide in the day-an and living economically upon the profits hour when the sun retires and the shadows of his art as a painter. Their intimacy fall, and when nature assumes the appearincreased; and at length the Italian, ances of soberness and silence. It is an seeing my father's involuntary emotion at hour from which everywhere the thoughthis convulsive turnings and shudderings, less fly, as peopled only in their imaginawhich continued as formerly, interrupting tion with images of gloom; it is the hour, their conversation from time to time, told on the other hand, which in every age him his story. He was a native of Rome, the wise have loved, as bringing with it and had lived in some familiarity with, sentiments and affections more valuable and been much patronized by, a young than all the splendours of the day. Its nobleman; but upon some slight occasion first impression is to still all the turbu they had fallen out, and his patron, be- lence of thought or passion which the day sides using many reproachful expressions, may have brought forth. We follow with had struck him. The painter brooded our eye the descending sun-we listen to over the disgrace of the blow. He could the decaying sounds of labour and of toil; not challenge the nobleman, on account and, when all the fields are silent around of his rank; he therefore watched for an us, we feel a kindred stillness to breathe opportunity and assassinated him. Of upon our souls, and to calm them from course he fled from his country, and finally the agitations of society. From this had reached Hamburgh. He had not, first impression there is a second which however, passed many weeks from the naturally follows it; in the day we are night of the murder, before, one day, in living with men, in the eventide we begin the crowded street, he heard his name to live with nature; we see the world called by a voice familiar to him; he withdrawn from us, the shades of night turned short round, and saw the face of darken over the habitations of men, and his victim looking at him with a fixed eye. we feel ourselves alone. It is an hour From that moment he had no peace; at fitted, as it would seem, by Him who made all hours, in all places, and amidst all us to still, but with gentle hand, the companies, however engaged he might be throb of every unruly passion, and the he heard the voice, and could never help ardour of every impure desire; and, while looking round; and, whenever he so it veils for a time the world that misleads looked round, he always encountered the us, to awaken in our hearts those legitisame face staring close upon him. At mate affections which the heat of the day last, in a mood of desperation, he had may have dissolved. There is yet a fixed himself face to face, and eye to further scene it presents to us. While eye, and deliberately drawn the phantom | the world withdraws from us, and while

the shades of the evening darken upon our dwellings, the splendours of the firmament come forward to our view. In the moments when earth is overshadowed, heaven opens to our eyes the radiance of a sublimer being; our hearts follow the successive splendours of the scene; and while we forget for a time the obscurity of earthly concerns, we feel that there are 66 yet greater things than these."

and subdued, and we return into life as
into a shadowy scene, where we have
"
'disquieted ourselves in vain.
Yet a few years, we think, and all that
now bless, or all that now convulse
humanity, will also have perished. The
mightiest pageantry of life will pass-
the loudest notes of triumph or of con-
quest will be silent in the grave; the
wicked, wherever active, "will cease from
troubling," and the weary, wherever
suffering, "will be at rest." Under an

There is, in the second place, an "eventide" in the year-a season, as we now witness, when the sun withdraws his pro-impression so profound we feel our own pitious light, when the winds arise and hearts better. The cares, the animosithe leaves fall, and nature around us seems ties, the hatreds which society may have to sink into decay. It is said, in general, engendered, sink unperceived from our to be the season of melancholy; and if by bosoms. In the general desolation of this word be meant that it is the time of nature we feel the littleness of our own solemn and of serious thought, it is un-passions—we look forward to that kindred doubtedly the season of melancholy; yet evening which time must bring to allit is a melancholy so soothing, so gentle we anticipate the graves of those we in its approach, and so prophetic in its hate as of those we love. Every unkind influence, that they who have known it passion falls with the leaves that fall feel, as instinctively, that it is the doing around us; and we return slowly to our of God, and that the heart of man is not homes, and to the society which surround thus finely touched but to fine issues. us, with the wish only to enlighten or to bless them.

"the

When we go out into the fields in the evening of the year, a different voice approaches us. We regard, even in spite of ourselves, the still but steady advances of time. A few days ago, and the summer of the year was grateful, and every element was filled with life, and the sun of heaven seemed to glory in his ascendant. He is now enfeebled in his power; the desert no more "blossoms like the rose; song of joy is no more heard among the branches; and the earth is strewed with that foliage which once bespoke the magnificence of summer. Whatever may be the passions which society has awakened, we pause amid this apparent desolation of nature. We sit down in the lodge "of the wayfaring man in the wilderness," and we feel that all we witness is the emblem of our own fate. Such also in a few years will be our own condition. The blossoms of our spring, the pride of our summer, will also fade into decay; and the pulse that now beats high with virtuous or with vicious desire, will gradually sink, and then must stop for ever. We rise from our meditations with hearts softened

If there were no other effects, my brethren, of such appearances of nature upon our minds, they would still be valuable-they would teach us humility, and with it they would teach us charity.

[REV. CALEB Colton. 17 -1832.] TRUE GENIUS ALWAYS UNITED TO COMMON-SENSE.

THE great examples of Bacon, of Milton, of Newton, of Locke, and of others, happen to be directly against the popular inference, that a certain wildness of eccentricity and thoughtlessness of conduct are the necessary accompaniments of talent, and the sure indications of genius. Because some have united these extravagances with great demonstrations of talent, as a Rousseau, a Chatterton, a Savage, a Burns, or a Byron, others, finding it less difficult to be eccentric than to be brilliant, have therefore adopted the one, in the hope that the world would give them