tinue his progress. So is every youth who goes forth from the home of his earlier years, compelled, by a necessity of his being, to pause and reflect, as he crosses the barrier with which parental love and affection have ever surrounded and protected him. The Author of Nature has in kindness so constituted our minds that they will not admit of any sudden and violent revolution. Therefore it is that the victims of the Great Enemy are led gradually to their ruin and can never be made to leap at once the abyss which sunders vice from virtue."

"But," said I, "the vessel and the gate are both artificial, and the devices of men. Show me an instance of the harmony you admire, drawn from nature." "Certainly," replied Jeremiah. "Look at these trees which skirt the bank of the stream. During Spring and Summer, they are all green. At a great distance, from which you cannot discern the individual leaves, you cannot distinguish them one from another. But let Autumn advance. Let the nourishment which now gives them life and vigor descend from their limbs and leave them exposed to the piercing air of the falling year. You shall find them turning, each according to his kind, to a separate hue. One becomes red, another yellow, another brown, and all shall reveal distinctly to the world their several varieties. So it is with human life. In the vigor of health and strength, we may all deceive our fellows, all maintain a fair show of virtue, and the world may fail to discriminate aright between the righteous and the wicked. But when death comes hastening on apace, and the silver cord is loosening and the golden bowl is breaking,' and the sharp tooth of the worm is griding through our heart-strings, then we appear in something of our true natures. Death is a terrible discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.' Many a good man begins his everlasting song of triumph before he goes down to his grave; and many a wretch shrieks out upon his death bed with the first notes of the wail of his deathless anguish."

Jeremiah appeared so much affected by the theme to which his thoughts had been suddenly directed, that I left him in silence for awhile to his own contemplations. His appearance too, I confess, quite surprised me. He was one of that peculiar class of fellows whose features are not generally very striking, but whose countenances are sometimes so lit up with internal emotion that we wonder to see them capable of so much expression. Jeremiah fixed his elbows firmly against his knees, and, leaning his forehead upon the palms of his hands gazed with the most intense earnestness down into the deep clear water beneath him. I happened to have taken a seat somewhat below him upon the bank, from which I could command a full view of all the workings of his countenance. I have often noticed that we are by no means displeased at observing others affected by the play of our features. I suppose the fact (for it certainly is a fact) must be owing to our love of a consciousness of power, a feeling which may be often traced in circumstances apparently the most trivial. Garrick, perhaps the best actor which the British stage has ever furnished, took the most intense delight in alternately frightening and amusing a child, by vividly representing the various passions. This disposition not unfrequent

ly leads us to display on our countenances more emotion than is felt within; and I have no doubt that it led my friend Jeremiah, on the occasion alluded to, farther than the truth would warrant.

At all events I was willing he should know that I was by no means overcome by the clouds and sunshine which passed fitfully across his features. "Come, you've moped long enough. Wake up and give us some more of your exquisite natural harmonies.' Does this principle of association extend completely throughout nature ?"

"Certainly it does; it is as universal as the law of gravitation. Not a single leaf or grain of dust is without its lesson of wisdom, and its counterpart in the world of thought."

I at once determined to put him to the test and see how he would endure it. "There's a clam-shell half full of sand by the water. What hidden lesson does that teach ?" 66 Many," instantly replied Jeremiah, "but most emphatically the transitory nature of human life. You see the water breaks ever and anon in little ripples over the shell. You see also that by the flux and reflux of each wave, a few grains of sand are dashed out into the open water. Now I should suppose you might read the lesson yourself without wishing me to interpret. The hour glass is commonly reckoned an affecting emblem of life, but this shell is truer to nature than the hour-glass. As soon as a man is born into the world, Death draws near and commences his struggle for his victim. Our existence, from the cradle to the grave, is one long contest between life and death within us. Now your hour-glass by the quiet and ceaseless dropping of its particles represents this fierce and terrible contest as an unresisting and prolonged surrender by the energies of life to the onset of death. But the victory is not so readily won. The attack is indeed weakly resisted during the feeble months of infancy, and most at once abandon the contest and pass to heaven, like angels assuming the human form to take a momentary view of this dark world. But if once the enemy (for men will obstinately persist in calling him so) has been baffled till the growing frame has gathered strength, it is long before he makes to tremble again the bulwarks of the citadel of life.' Occasionally, indeed, he advances his engine and effects a breach; but the powers of life put forth their strength and he retires in confusion to bide his time. His victory is therefore long delayed and his inroads are often brief and interrupted. All this is taught you by the shell which lies before you. A few sands only are dashed out by each such successive wave, and meanwhile the great body remains unharmed within."

I was somewhat amused by the long series of reflections which Jeremiah deduced from the phenomena of a clam-shell, and determined to give him one more trial before abandoning his case as hopeless. Looking around for an object on which to test his ingenuity, the idea of a practical joke came into my head. Suddenly snatching one corner of the stone on which Jeremiah was quietly sitting and enjoying his contemplations, and springing aside to let it pass I gave it and its load a motion down towards the water which the steep declivity of the bank put it out of Jeremiah's power to arrest. The demure ex

pression of his features instantly gave way to a black scowl. But the gravitating tendency of his physical system soon drew his attention to the singular evolutions which it was performing. Complete despair settled upon his countenance as he tremulously abandoned himself to his fate. The idea of arresting his course was, as I said, entirely vain. His exertions were confined to maintaining an erect posture and descending with the dignity which becomes a man of mind. But even this consolation was denied him. The stone which bore him, having begun to slide, speedily came in contact with another which had n't and was n't disposed to. The natural consequence was that the rocks remained behind while Jeremiah continued his entertaining perform

ances.

Then followed a series of those peculiar involuntary gestures by which Nature endeavors to maintain the equilibrium of the body. His arms flew round like those of a windmill in a brisk gale. His lower limbs described alternately the letters A and V with a most remarkable facility. Then he would gain, and for a moment maintain his balance. But directly up flew one arm, then the other, then both together, then both legs, and thus Jeremiah reached the mud by the water side in a condition as remarkable as it was distressing. Meanwhile he had loosened everything moveable in his course, and turf, sticks, and stones followed, rattling about his ears, very much, as he afterwards observed, (for Jeremiah had a vigorous imagination,) like little imps rejoicing in his downfall.

No sooner had he reached the bottom than he rose from his position and without waiting to shovel off the mud, turned towards me with an expression resembling those of a rabid dog, a hyena and—an exasperated female, all compounded. It was a critical period with me, but I met the emergency nobly, and inquired with great calmness,— "Jeremiah, what great lesson in the world of thought is associated with this unfortunate incident?" The thunderbolt which was evidently prepared, was laid instantly aside, and with a grave countenance and a dignified demeanor, strangely contrasting with the condition of his person, Jeremiah stood still in the mud and delivered me a half 'hour's homily on the perils of falling into mental dejection, the difficulty of maintaining, in such cases, the equilibrium of the mind, and the sad plight to which it reduces the entire mental constitution; convincing me beyond a doubt that his mania was remediless.

SCHOLARSHIP.

GENTLE FRIENDS,-You hear our subject. We do not hope to present anything new, at any rate in matter. Alas! there is but little originality-a grain as it were-in this poor world now-a-days. Every thing seems verily "weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable." All we can expect is to bring a few old thoughts before you in the dress and guise of our own fancy, which in faith is considerable; for next to saying a new thing well and at the first, must surely be put the saying an old thing well and last, more truly and grandly uttered than by any one before.

As to our subject, we will at once forestall your captious censure by confessing that it is hackneyed enough. And yet you will find that, like the truths of the Bible, or those tried, terse proverbs, which abide forever, because coeval with all human experience, it can never be set aside as old or untimely. So long as mind is prevalent over flesh and men keep not down, with the cold, sensual hand of carnal policy, its uprisings after truth, so long must the claims of scholarship be imperious and valid. In a word, Sir Reader, so long as there are things to know, there must be knowers, and a right way to know them.

The students of our day, and certainly of our land, are mostly but meagre and feeble folk in learning. Abroad, even, in the old country, which has been thickly and patiently sown for ages with the seeds of thought, where is that race of thinkers that should have sprung up from them? The giant men of books who trode so gloriously the intellectual arena of the sixteenth century, who were nurtured amid mental wars and controversies, and trained in the severities of thoroughgoing schools, have gone their ways; and who are there now that can fill up their panoply? We find few that prove themselves able to wield with familiar skill those massive weapons, the shield of Ajax and the spear of Achilles! We do not mean by this that we have no scholars in these times. There are many, both in this country and Europe, who are mighty men at books, who are well-versed in the lessons of Wisdom, the true interpreters of Nature and the proper high priests of her mysteries-who are, in every sense of the word, Scholars. They adorn every profession and enlighten every science, blessing the world daily in their silent, patient business, with the real and tangible profits of gainful theories. On every side we find them, useful, happy, labor-willing men. Yet they are by no means comThere are numbers beyond compute of students, so called; but they are of little account in the reckonings of sound men; insignificant enough on the lists of the mighty. Of the possessors of a broad, deep, natural knowledge, we have but few.

mon.

We know not how it may be with others; but for our single self, when we cast our eyes on so dwarfish a set, we long for those early times, those good ancestral days, when men dipped their pens into their own brains and not in those of their neighbors; when they wrote because they felt, and felt because they thought; when they were simple in their notions as they were plain in their lives. Those were

the times of Roger Ascham, the famous tutor to Queen Elizabeth and Sir John Cheke, the best scholar of his age, and Lord Burleigh, that worthy patron of science and schools of learning; of Milton, Walter Raleigh, and Bacon; of the sturdy Luther, the mild Melancthon, the learned and wily Erasmus; and a goodly host of others, whom the time forbiddeth to mention. Then education was more of a home work, a self-process, actively from within, rather than passively from without; when learners took good heed to their teachers, and, as one saith, "by busy imitation with tongue and pen, got true eloquent speech."

We do by no means take it upon us to say that the professed scholars of our age are in one sense less learned than were the class we have mentioned. In the matter of mere information, in the possession of true theories in science and right principles in art, in a correct and minute acquaintance with the forms and materials of knowledge, we are, without doubt, vastly their superiors. But, alas! how scanty and poor is an excellence that lies chiefly in the husk and garnishment of things! Prithee, pride, be still. In the knowledge actually gained, in that inward training which is the true and only end of all outward circumstances and instruments, how much better and further were they than ourselves! Under that old style of writing, quaint, rude, unenviable enough, at times, they yet showed a meaning and most excellent sense, which we miss, with much sorrow, from the productions of more modern authors. In every thing they say there runs a vein of thought, so easy, rich, and natural, and withal so pleasant, that their oddest conceits are often fullest of truth, and take captive at once our fancies and hearts with an instant and charming power. And this is so far the case, that any one at all familiar with the writings of that day, will often find himself wondering at the great power of their language, and be almost ready to believe that the words which he hears and utters every day had then another and stronger sense, and have lost, in the growth of years, a good part of their significance.

But how is this? How comes it, that with the same medium of thought, the souls of men, in that age, shone out so much more lustrous and clear than now? How is it, that words and phrases, then full and fervid with intelligence, are now grown dull and tame. How is it, we ask again, that in actions as well as language, and even in their commonest behavior, they showed themselves so much truer to nature? So wide and obvious a difference cannot be wholly explained by any peculiarity in their circumstances. We might, indeed, expect that in the infancy of all nations men would be more simple in their speech and writings, as they were led to be in their manner and their lives. But should this, of necessity, give more power and naturalness to all they did and said? Or did they have stronger motives to study, from the state of things among which they were cast and the peculiar nature of the times on which they were fallen, and having fewer books to read, had more time and necessity to think? Or did they dwell more upon the past, and have a richer field of time