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what we can assert with the highest probability, that yon planetary orbs are so many worlds, that they teem with life, and that the mighty Being who presides in high authority over this scene of grandeur and astonishment, has there planted the worshippers of his glory.

T. CHALMERS.—Discourses on the Christian

Revelation.

DICTIONARIES

WERE we to inquire who first led up the way of dictionaries, of late so much frequented, some little grammarian would, probably, be found at the head thereof and from his particular views, designs, &c., if known, one might probably deduce, not only the general form, but even the particular circumstances of the modern productions under that name. The relation, however, extends both ways; and if we cannot deduce the nature of a dictionary from the condition of the author, we may the condition of the author from the nature of the dictionary. Thus much, at least, we may say, that he was an analyst; that his view was not to improve or advance knowledge but to teach or convey it; and that he was hence led to untie the complexions or bundles of ideas his predecessors had made, and reduce them to their natural simplicity; which is all that is essential to a lexicographer. Probably this was in the early days of the Egyptian sages, when words were more complex and obscure than now; and mystic symbols and hieroglyphics obtained; so that an explication of their marks or words might amount to a revelation of their whole inner philosophy: in which case, instead of a grammarian, we must put perhaps a priest or mystagogue at the head of dictionaries. Indeed, this seems the more probable, for that a grammatical dictionary could only have place where a language was already become very copious, and many synonymons got into it; or where the people of one language were desirous to learn that of another which we have no reason to think could be very early, till much commerce and communication had made it necessary.

When a path is once made, men are naturally disposed to follow it, even though it be not the most convenient :

numbers will enlarge and widen, or even make it straighter
and easier; but it is odds they do not alter its course. To
deviate from it is chiefly for the ignorant or the irregular ;
persons who do not well know it, or are too licentious to
keep it.
And hence the alterations and improvements
made in the several arts are chiefly owing to people of those
characters. There is scarce a more powerful principle in
nature than that of imitation, which not only leads us to
do what we see others do, but as they do it. It is true there
are exceptions from every rule: there are persons in good
measure exempted from the influence of this principle;
and it is happy there are; witness our Paracelsuses,
Hobbeses, Leibnitzes, &c. In effect, if an art were first
broached by an happy genius, it is afterwards cultivated
on his principles to advantage: otherwise, not and it
may wait long for the anomalous hand of some reformer
to set it to rights. Some of our arts have met with such
hands, others still want them.

E. CHAMBERS.-Cyclopaedia: or, an Universal
Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.

NATIONALITY AND STYLE

If we confine ourselves simply to the consideration of style, we shall have reason to think that a people among whom this is neglected wants one important intellectual aid. In this, great power is exerted, and by exertion increased. To the multitude, indeed, language seems so natural an instrument, that to use it with clearness and energy seems no great effort. It is framed, they think, to the writer's hand, and so continually employed as to need little thought or skill. But in nothing is the creative power of a gifted writer seen more than in his style. True, his words may be found in the dictionary; but there they lie disjointed and dead. What a wonderful life does he breathe into them by compacting them into his sentences! Perhaps he uses no term which has not yet been hackneyed by ordinary writers; and yet with these vulgar materials what miracles does he achieve! What a world of thought does he condense into a phrase! By new combinations of

common words, what delicate lines or what a blaze of light does he pour over his subject! Power of style depends very little on the structure or copiousness of the language which the writer of genius employs, but chiefly, if not wholly, on his own mind. The words, arranged in his dictionary, are no more fitted to depict his thoughts than the block of marble in the sculptor's shop to show forth the conceptions which are dawning in his mind.. Both are inert materials. The power which pervades them comes from the soul; and the same creative energy is manifested in the production of a noble style as in extracting beautiful forms from lifeless stone. How unfaithful, then, is a nation to its own intellect, in which grace and force of style receive no culture.

W. E. CHANNING.-Remarks on National
Literature.

ON BURYING A HAIR

THIS solemn pageant graced with so glorious a presence as your Highness's self, and others, as you see, that mourn in their gowns and laugh in their sleeves, may perhaps breed a wonder in those that know not the cause, and laughter in those that know it. To see the mighty Emperor of Rome march in a mourning habit, and after him all the state of the empire either present or presented; the peers in person, though with dry eyes yet God knows their hearts; others in their ranks; one representing the state of a courtier (as I judge by his leg), another of a citizen (as I judge by his head), another of a soldier (as I judge by his look), another the state poetical (as I judge by his clothes); for the state physical, it hath no place here, for whoever saw a physician follow a funeral? To see, I say, all this assembly masking in this funeral pomp, could he that saw it imagine any less funeral subject would follow than the hearse of your dear mother Agrippina ? or your beloved wife Octavia? or else of her whom you prefer to them both, your divine Poppaea? At least who would imagine that a poor hair broken loose from his fellows, or shaken off, like a windfall from the golden tree before his time, should have the honour of this imperial solemnity; and be able to glory

like the fly in the cart: Good heaven, what a troop of fools have I gathered together!

It is fatal to all honourable actions to fall under the Scourge of detracting tongues, and for the most part to be condemned before they come to trial. In regard whereof, I will borrow so much of your patience as that I may in a word or two examine the whole ground of this spectacle: not doubting but that I shall make it appear to all upright ears that it is an action most worthy your wisdom, my gracious sovereign, and that this silly, this base, this contemptible hair on this hearse supported, receives no thought of honour but what it well deserveth.

G. CHAPMAN.-A Justification of a strange
Action of Nero.

[CHATHAM, LORD.-See PITT.]

THE COMMONPLACES OF PRUDENCE

UPON a day befel that he [Melibeus] for his disport is went into the fields him to play. His wife and eke his daughter hath he left within his house, of which the doors were fast shut. Three of his old foes have it espied, and set ladders to the walls of his house, and by the windows have entered and beaten his wife, and wounded his daughter with five mortal wounds in five sundry places; this is to say, in her feet, in her hands, in her ears, in her nose, and in her mouth; and left her for dead, and went away.

When Melibeus returned was into his house, and saw all this mischief, he, like a mad man, rending his clothes, gan to weep and cry.

Prudence his wife, as far forth as she durst, besought him of his weeping for to stint; but only therefore he gan to cry and weep ever longer the more.

This noble wife Prudence remembered her upon the sentence of Ovid, in his book that cleped is The Remedy of Love wherein he saith; he is a fool that disturbeth the mother to weep in the death of her child, till she have wept her fill, as for a certain time; and then shall man do his diligence with amiable words her to recomfort, and pray her of her weeping for to stint.' For which reason this noble

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wife Prudence suffered her husband for to weep and cry as for a certain space; and when she saw her time, she Isaid him in this wise. Alas, my lord,' quoth she, why make ye yourself for to be like a fool? Forsooth, it appertaineth not to a wise man, to make such a sorrow. Your daughter, with the grace of God, shall be cured and escape. And although were it so that she right now were dead, ye ne ought not as for her death yourself to destroy. Seneca saith: "the wise man shall not take to great discomfort for the death of his children, but certes he should suffer it in patience, as well as he abideth the death of his own proper person.

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G. CHAUCER.-Tale of Melibee.

THE ASTROLABE

LITTLE Lewis my son, I have perceived well by certain evidences thine ability to learn sciences touching numbers and proportions; and as well consider I thy busy prayer in special to learn the Treatise of the Astrolabe. Then, forasmuch as a philosopher saith, he wrappeth him in his friend, that condescendeth to the rightful prayers of his friend,' therefore have I given thee a sufficient astrolabe as for our horizon, compounded after the latitude of Oxford, upon which by mediation of this little treatise, I purpose to teach thee a certain number of conclusions appertaining to the same instrument. I say a certain of conclusions, for three causes. The first cause is this: trust well that all the conclusions that have been found, or else possibly might be found in so noble an instrument as an astrolabe, be unknown perfectly to any mortal man in this region, as I suppose. Another cause is this; that soothly in any treatise of the astrolabe that I have seen, there be some conclusions that will not in all things perform their behests; and some of them be too hard to thy tender age of ten year to conceive. This treatise, divided in five parts will I show thee under full light rules and naked words in English; for Latin ne canst thou yet but small, my little son. But natheless, suffice to thee these true conclusions in English, as well as sufficeth to these noble clerks Greeks these same conclusions in Greek, and to Arabians in Arabic, and to Jews

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