applauses of the theatre on which he performs are so essential to him, that he must obtain them at the expense of decency, friendship, and good feeling. It must always be probable, too, that a mere wit is a person of light and frivolous understanding. His business is not to discover relations of ideas that are useful, and have a real influence upon life, but to discover the more trifling relations which are only amusing; he never looks at things with the naked eye of common sense, but is always gazing at the world through a Claude Lorraine glass,—discovering a thousand appearances which are created only by the instrument of inspection, and covering every object with fictitious and unnatural colours. In short, the character of a mere wit it is impossible to consider as very amiable, very respectable, or very safe. So far the world, in judging of wit where it has swallowed up all other qualities, judge aright; but I doubt if they are sufficiently indulgent to this faculty where it exists in a lesser degree, and as one out of the many ingredients of the understanding. There is an association in men's minds between dulness and wisdom, amusement and folly, which has a powerful influence in decision upon character, and is not overcome without considerable difficulty. The reason is, that the outward signs of a dull man and a wise man are the same, and so are the outward signs of a frivolous man and a witty man; and we are not to expect that the majority will be disposed to look to much more than the outward sign. I believe the fact to be, that wit is very seldom the only eminent quality which resides in the mind of any man; it is commonly accompanied by many other talents of every description, and ought to be considered as a strong evidence of a fertile and superior understanding.

Almost all the great poets, orators, and statesmen of all times have been witty: Cæsar, Alexander, Aristotle, Descartes, and Lord Bacon were witty men; so were Cicero, Shakespeare, Demosthenes, Boileau, Pope, Dryden, Fontenelle, Jonson, Waller, Cowley, Solon, Socrates, Dr. Johnson, and almost every man who has made a distinguished figure in the House of Commons. I have talked of the danger of wit: I do not mean by that to enter into common-place declamation against faculties because they are dangerous; wit is dangerous, eloquence is dangerous, a talent for observation is dangerous, everything is dangerous that has efficacy and vigour for its characteristics; nothing is safe but mediocrity. The business is, in conducting the undertaking well, to risk something; to aim at uniting things that are commonly incompatible. The meaning of an extraordinary man is, that he is eight men, not one man; that he has as much wit as if he had no sense, and as much sense as if he had no wit; that his

conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of human beings, and his imagination as brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined. But when wit is combined with sense and information; when it is softened by benevolence, and restrained by strong principle; when it is in the hands of a man who can use it and despise it, who can be witty and something much better than witty, who loves honour, justice, decency, good nature, morality, and religion ten thousand times better than wit-wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of our nature.

There is no more interesting spectacle than to see the effects of wit upon the different characters of men; than to observe its expanding caution, relaxing dignity, unfreezing coldnessteaching age, and care, and pain to smile-extorting reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and charming even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it penetrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually bringing men nearer together, and, like the combined force of wine and oil, giving every man a glad heart and shining countenance. Genuine and innocent wit, like this, is surely the flavour of the mind! Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavour, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to "charm his pained steps over the burning marle."-SYDNEY SMITH.

THE SOLITARY REAPER.

BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chant
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers, in some shady haunt
Among Arabian sands;

Such thrilling voice was never heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago,—

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again!

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending ;—
I listened,-motionless and still;
And when I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.

WORDSWORTH.

No boy is the happier for bad qualities, though they are so common among young people; many children find delight in tormenting defenceless creatures, and in unnecessarily destroying insects, forgetting the old saying

"Destroy them not, for all things ought to live:
Take not away the life thou canst not give."

A father once rebuked his cruel children in the following manner: he told them that he had some very heavy charges to bring against them, and that the complainants whom they had injured were all in the next room, and would appear against them. The children were much frightened at this, and begged hard to know what it was they were charged with. Their father told them that one complainant had been pushed by them into a puddle up to his knees; another wounded by a sharp pike; a third knocked down; a fourth stoned; a fifth robbed of all that his house contained; and a sixth frightened almost out of his senses. All the children denied the truth of these accusations, and declared that they had never been guilty of such cruelty in their lives; but the father told them, he could not believe them. that children who were cruel would not scruple to tell He then fetched a basket from the next room, and ne table. Uncovering the basket, he took out a

fa'

poor fly, which one of them had wantonly pushed into a cup of treacle; a cock-chafer, which they had been spinning; a butterfly, which they had knocked down as he was flying over the garden; a frog, whose leg they had broken with a stone, as he hopped about by the side of a pond; and a bird's nest, with the eggs they had taken from it. He then went out, and returned with a dog, to whose tail they had cruelly tied an old tin kettle, which rattled against the ground as he ran, and drove him almost mad. The children were all confounded. Their father explained to them, that if they had committed those acts of cruelty towards their fellow-creatures they would have been severely punished; but that their wickedness was not less clearly shown by being committed against feeble and helpless creatures, which had power neither to defend themselves, nor to punish their tormentors. They cried while their father spoke of the bird's nest, and he succeeded in convincing them of the sin which they had committed; and though the punishment he inflicted was light compared with their cruelty, it impressed on their youthful minds the remembrance of their transgression, and they did not again practise cruelty. The child who is cruel to insects, or animals, is a tormentor of God's creatures, and may well fear His judgments whose tender mercies are over all his works, and without whose permission not a sparrow falleth to the ground. It is better to overcome evil in our youth, than to let it overcome us in our manhood.-' Boy's Week-day Book.'

THE SELFISH MAN.

WHO should lament for him within whose heart
Love had no place, nor natural charity?
The parlour spaniel, when she heard his step,
Rose slowly from the hearth, and stole aside
With creeping pace; she never raised her eyes
To woo kind words from him, nor laid her head
Unpraised upon his knee, with fondling whine.
How could it be but thus? Arithmetic
Was the sole science he was ever taught;
The multiplication-table was his creed,

His paternoster, and his decalogue.

When yet he was a boy, and should have breathed
The open air and sunshine of the fields,

To give his blood its natural spring and play,

He in a close and dusky counting-house,

Smoke-dried and seared, and shrivelled up his heart.

He took the children by the hand,
When teares stood in their eye,
And bade them come and go with him,
And look they did not crye:

And two long miles he ledd them thus,
While they for bread complaine:

"Stay here," quoth he, "I'll bring ye bread, When I do come againe."

These pretty babes, with hand in hand,
Went wandering up and downe ;
But never more they sawe the man
Approaching from the town;

Their prettye lippes, with blackberries,
Were all besmeared and dyed,

And when they sawe the darksome night,
They sat them downe and cryed.

Thus wandered these two prettye babes,
Till deathe did end their grief,
In one another's armes they dyed,

As babes wanting relief:

No burial these prettye babes
Of any man receives,

Till robin red-breast painfully

Did cover them with leaves.

And now the heavy wrathe of God
Upon their uncle fell;

Yea, fearful fiends did haunt his house,
His conscience felt an hell:

His barnes were fired, his goods consumed,
His lande were barren made

His cattle dyed within the field,
And nothing with him stayd.

And in the voyage of Portugal
Two of his sonnes did dye;

And, to conclude, himself was brought
Unto much miserye :

He pawned and mortgaged all his land
Ere seven years came about;

And now at length this wicked act

Did by this meanes come out :