tite of a hunter. No knotty points of science spoil his digestion at the dinner-table or chase sleep from his pillow at night. He rises fresh and vigorous in the morning, and goes for a ramble through the woods. Here no questions either of botany or philosophy disturb his repose :

"A primrose by the river's brim,

A yellow primrose is to him,
And it is nothing more."

Certainly not. What more should it be, Mr. William Wordsworth? Surely you don't mean to say that it is an artichoke? No; a primrose is a primrose, and nothing else on earth. "Fleas are not lobsters, d- their eyes!" said Peter Pindar with equal truth and elegance, Then again for astronomy. What's the use of it? what good purpose can it possibly serve? Mr. William Shakespeare was a man of no small intellect, and mark what he says about astronomers :

These earthly godfathers of Heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot not what they are."

Not a jot! Who ever heard of the moon shining more brightly, or of the stars winking more waggishly, at an astronomer than at any other man? It is more than they would dare to do. Moreover, it is worthy of remark, that learning takes the pluck out of a man. The learned are ever cautious and circumspect; the illiterate are intrepid and adventurous. Fools rush in where angels dare not tread, so that you see the fools have by far the best of it. They go in and win while the angels stand outside shivering in the cold. Learning

destroys a man's faith in his own work. An ignorant man may quarrel with all the world besides, but he is invariably on the best of terms with himself. He is in love with himself, and-as the French epigram phrases it, "n'a point de rival"—has no rival. Give him mental culture, and his self-esteem vanishes in an instant. His arrogance and presumption will disappear, taking with them his peace of mind. Teach him music, and the barrel-organs and brass bands to which he now listens with rapture will jar upon his ear with intolerable discord. The vilest chromo is now to his eyes even as the lovliest Claude. Give him an idea of color and form, and he will no longer sit in the same room with the daubs that once gladdened his eyes. You will have deprived him of innumerable sources of delight. He will fall into a wretched habit of forming unfavorable comparisons, and instead of enjoying the sublime spectacles presented to his vision, he will bethink him of others yet more delightful which he may not behold. When he sees Mr. Lowe upon his bycicle, instead of being thankful to fortune for the noble sight, he will hark back in imagination to classic times and picture to his mind's eye Alexander mounted upon Bucephalus. When somebody reads to him a page of Mr. Tupper, instead of clapping his hands in transport, he will groan inwardly and shout for Mr. Tennyson. He has eaten of the tree of knowledge and the fruit has disagreed with him. And so it is all the world over. We sit through a play, and read through a book, deriving amusement from each, because we are as yet unaware of the dénouement of either. Think you that the crowds swarming eagerly through the streets of London in the prosecution of business, or the holiday-makers who, frantic with en

thusiasm, throng the banks of the Thames to witness the Boat Race, would be thus zealous in the pursuit, either of profit or of pleasure, could they but gaze into futurity and see with what sorrows and solicitudes the coming years may be fraught for them? No; they are happy because they are ignorant-happy, too, in the precise proportion of their ignorance. The veil that hides the future from their view was woven by the hand of Mercy. And as with the future, so also with the past; the less we know of either the better for our mental tranquility. Othello found not Cassio's kisses on the lips of Desdemona till Iago told him they were there, so true is it that,

"He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen,

Let him not know it and he's not robbed at all."

How much more comfortable would this world be, and how much more smoothly should we all jog along together in it, were it not that some restless, inquisitive busybodies are eternally enlightening us on a matter in respect of which ignorance were indeed bliss. Spoonfed from earliest infancy upon the London fog, I would now swallow it like jelly, and deem it an atmospheric delicacy, but that I was bullied to visit Italy, the Mediterranean, and the South of France. Ever since I have sickened at the thought of my native fog, and shuddered at the sight of the mustard-poultice in which the English sun is picturesquely bandaged. Those wretched analysts, too, what misery they cause me! Why will they not let me eat my food and drink my liquor in peace? I am willing enough to take things for what they profess to be, and to enjoy them accordingly. I don't want to be told that my butter is lard,

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my bread alum, my milk chalk and dogs' brains, my port log-wood and sloes, my sausages dead cats, or my vinegar muriatic acid. Devil take it! Can't you leave me alone and let me be poisoned in peace? What is it to you? only that you are poor and busy. Prejudice they say is the daughter of Ignorance. What then? An illustrious lineage for a most respectable progeny. Nothing can be more respectable than honest prejudice, and the more pig-headed it is the better. Of all things in the world it is the most convenient, seeing that it supersedes the necessity for reasoning and argument. I am proud to say that I am a man of the most accomplished ignorance and the most inveterate prejudice, and I would not exchange my ignorance and prejudice for the wisdom of Minerva and her Owl. Not content with unsexing our women and destroying the supply of domestic servants, those pestilential school boards— but hark! What's that? The clock ! And gone twelve! I had no idea it was so late. "To bed to bed!" as Lady Macbeth beautifully remarks. write no more for the money; but I hope I have written enough to prove that Ignorance is man's best friend, and that high indeed is her dignity and matchless her delight.

THE DELIGHTS OF DECEPTION.

GRA

'RANTED that a lie in morals is a turpitude unworthy of a gentleman, the fact remains that a lie is the very soul of art, and that without it there were no art worthy of the name. In fact, a lie stands in pretty

much the same relation to art as grapes to wine or hops to beer. It is wonderful to think how subtle and insoluble is the connection between deceit and intellectual enjoyment. Take what province of mental effort you may, whether the dramatic, the artistic, or the literary, and you will find that deceit is the warp from which has been woven the web of the spell that enchants you. When Butler wrote his immortal maxim— "The pleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat," he gave expression to one of the truest, profoundest thoughts that ever fell from the pen or lips of man. The more we dwell upon it the more vivid becomes our sense of the wealth of philosophy hived within the homely saying, like honey in the bag of the bee. "Qui vult decipi decipiatur "-let him be deceived who desires to be deceived, says the Latin proverb, and what man is there, or woman either, who does not cherish such a desire ?—

"What man so wise, what earthly wit so rare

As to descry the crafty cunning train

By which deceit doth mask in visor fair

And seem like Truth whose shape she well can feign ?"

There is no such man, good old Edmund Spenser, and if there were he would be the most unhappy wretch on earth. This disenchanted world would lose all its lustre for him who could no longer find joy either in being cheated or to cheat. For what do we go to the play, inspect a picture, or read a story, if not for the luxury of being befooled for a season into a belief in that which we know to be untrue? If it were humanly possible for Mr. Sothern to be really Lord Dundreary, for Mr. J. S. Clarke to be truly Dr. Pangloss, for Mr.