: ginations but for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy, and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts_with_compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow. When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago—I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together!-ADDISON. THERE is no sight that more powerfully carries back the thoughts to the olden time than an old library. I do not mean merely an old building, nor a collection of old books,-not a show-place, nor an elaborate modern antique,-but a veritable library of the olden time. There is a sight of this kind at the little town of Wimborne, in Dorsetshire. The old minster of that place, bearing witness to the architectural skill and taste both of the Saxon and the Norman era, has much to delight the antiquarian in its structure, its ornaments, its traces of successive enlargements, marked by obvious changes of style, its monuments, and its historical associations. But nothing to my mind was so interesting as a chamber in one of the towers that was called "The Library." The room was square and well proportioned, though by no means large; two windows, of a sort of casement form, more suited to an old house than a church tower, and evidently much more modern than the walls, admitted plenty of light; and round the three other sides of the room were rough-looking massive shelves, containing tarnished dilapidated books of all sorts, sizes, and colours, in clumsy but strong bindings, now sadly tattered, and in many cases dropping to pieces with age. Here were black-letter tomes-still older beautifully written manuscripts; specimens of early printing in the Roman character, that so soon triumphed over the black letter; a fine old polyglot Bible, in many volumes; and separate copies of the Scriptures, some in the original tongues, and some Latin and early English translations. The greatest peculiarity, however, was not the books, but the way they were secured. An iron rod went along the edge of each shelf, and was fastened at the end by a huge padlock. Each book had a chain screwed on to one of the covers (as we often see the Bible fastened to the desk in very old churches), and at the other end of the chain was a ring that ran on the locked iron rod. For the convenience of reading any of these venerable volumes thus guarded from removal, there was a portable desk and stool, which the reader could bring near any shelf, and sitting sufficiently close for the chained book to rest upon the desk, he could peruse the volume there, and there only. Nothing could appear more strange than the rusty iron chains hanging so thickly from the shelves-it seemed the prison rather than the home of the books. And this in olden times was the town library! It is probable that Wimborne was honoured above most towns of its size, not only by having its noble minster, but by its possessing a public library of any kind. It is true that even from the early part of the sixteenth century it had a great advantage in its admirable school, which was founded by the illustrious Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII., a woman who was deservedly called "the mother of the students of the Universities." And the probability is, that the townspeople, as books slowly increased, were tolerably competent to understand, and likely to value them. There is a fine copy of Sir Walter Raleigh's "History of the World," in this old library, and local tradition attaches an interesting anecdote to this book. It is said the poet Prior used to read here often; and once when poring over the book in question, on a winter evening, he fell asleep, and the candle, falling from the tin sconce of the desk upon the middle of the open book, burned slowly a round hole through, it may be, a hundred pages, rather more than less. The smoke of the smouldering paper aroused the weary student. A hand would have been sufficient to cover the damage and put out the fire, and probably in this way it was extinguished. We may imagine, however, the dismay at the mischief done to a book, costly even now, but then of much higher monetary value. The pains taken to remedy the effect, marks the value in which the book was held. Pieces of writing-paper, about the size of half-a-crown, are very neatly pasted into the holes, and the words needed to supply the sense are transcribed from the memory, and it is said, in the handwriting of Prior. How strangely does this old library, with its rusty drapery of iron chains, hanging in dismal festoons from the shelves, contrast with the public libraries of the present time. And yet more remarkable, as a sign of intellectual progress, is the difference now in the price of books of the highest intrinsic value and importance. The chains are broken; the illustrious prisoners, so long fettered and kept from intercourse with the people, are free. They have spread over the land and multiplied, and found a welcome with high and low, rich and poor, "Their thoughts in many a memory, Their home in many a heart." -Mrs. BALFOUR's 'Sketches of English Literature.' DAYS AMONG THE DEAD. My days among the Dead are past; Where'er these casual eyes are cast, My never-failing friends are they, With tears of thoughtful gratitude. My thoughts are with the Dead, with them Their virtues love, their faults condemn, And from their lessons seek and find My hopes are with the Dead, anon Yet leaving here a name, I trust, That will not perish in the dust.-SOUTHEY. HASTY and splenetic men have inveighed against Providence, for sending us into the world so naked of all covering, so destitute of natural clothing, so exposed to all injuries and sufferings of temperature and wet, while other animals have feathered, woolly, hairy, horny, shelly, or leathery outsides. But would any such querulous declaimers exchange their admirable skin for the hide of a beast, the scales of a crocodile, or the feathers of a turkey? Could any mind that sees, feels, or reasons, desire to have the physiognomy of a horse, an eagle, a lion, or an elephant, instead of "the human face divine," instead of its lovely complexion, its eloquent features, its attractive delicacy, and its impressive dignity? But independent of all beauty, and of all that delights the eye, the taste, and the touch, in the human skin, who would relinquish the mental advantages which we derive from its exquisite nervous sensitivity? We could not have a large portion of our sensations and ideas without it. It is the peculiar sensibility of the ends and insides of our fingers, and of our palm, which provides us with an important part of our most useful knowledge. The connection is unceasing between our mind and its delicate skin. A fine nervous expansion, proceeding from the brain, is purposely spread over the outside of our bodies, immediately under the last cuticle. That our intellect may have the benefit of this universal sensitivity, it is materially associated with our moral feelings and with our best sympathies. No small portion of the tenderness of our nature, and of our compassionate benevolences, are related to it. With the hide of a rhinoceros, or the wool of a sheep, or the shaggy coat of a bear, we should not possess the feelings of a human heart, nor the intellectual sensibility of a cultivated mind. A comparative stupidity, hardness of nature, insensibility, roughness, cruelty, or savage humour, would characterise us in such a transformation, as corresponding qualities accompany other creatures, according as their outside habiliment differs from our beautiful exterior.TURNER'S Sacred History.' 1. Even in man, the acuteness of the sensibility of the cutaneous surface varies greatly in different parts; being greatest at the extremities of the fingers and in the lips; and least in the skin of the trunk, arm, and thigh. Carpenter's Physiology. THE ORDER OF NATURE. THE bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) No powers of body or of soul to share Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, If nature thundered in his opening ears, And stunned him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heaven had left him still Far as creation's ample range extends, |