Many days, many days, on this rugged fron- | 'Tis but a step down yonder lane, and the littier, tle church stands nearFor the ways they were rough and the The church where we were wed, Mary : I see Camanches were near, the spire from here; But you'd better pack up, sir: that tent is But the graveyard lies between, Mary, and too small my step might break your rest, For I've laid you, darling, down to sleep, with your baby on your breast. MODESTY. FROM AN INDIAN MANUSCRIPT WRITTEN BY AN ANCIENT BRAHMIN. HO art thou, O man, that The first step toward being As a plain garment best adorneth a beautiful woman, so a decent behavior is the greatest ornament of wisdom. The speech of a modest man giveth lustre to truth, and the diffidence of his words absolveth his error. He relieth not on his own wisdom; he weigheth the counsels of a friend and receiveth the benefit thereof. He turneth away his ear from his own praise and believeth it not; he is the last in discovering his own perfections. Yet, as a veil addeth to beauty, so are his virtues set off by the shade which his modesty casteth upon them. But behold the vain man and observe the arrogant! He clotheth himself in rich attire; he walketh in the public street; he casteth round his eyes and courteth obser vation. He tosseth up his head and overlooketh the poor; he treateth his inferiors with in solence, and his superiors, in return, look down on his pride and folly with laughter. He despiseth the judgment of others; he relieth on his own opinion, and is confounded. He is puffed up with the vanity of his imagination; his delight is to hear, and to speak, of himself all the day long. He swalloweth with greediness his own praise, and the flatterer, in return, eateth him up. Translation of ROBERT DODSLEY. USES OF KNOWLEDGE. EARNING taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men's minds, though a little superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, temerity and insolency by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance. reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the kind, and to accept of nothing but the examined and tried. It taketh away vain admiration of anything which is the root of all weakness, for all things are admired either because they are new or because they are great. For novelty no man wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly, but will find printed in his heart, "I know nothing." Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets that goeth behind the curtain and adviseth well of the motion. And for magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after that he was used to great armies and the great conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece of some fights and services there which were commonly for a passage or a fort, or some walled town at the most, he said, "It seemed to him that he was advertised of the battle of the frogs and the mice, that the old tales went off." So, certainly, if a man meditate upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it, the divineness of souls excepted, will not seem much other than an ant-hill, where some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust. It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death or adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue and imperfections of manners. For if a man's mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken, and went forth the next day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead, and thereupon said, "Yesterday I saw a fragile thing broken; to-day I have seen a mortal thing die." And therefore Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes and the conquest of all fears together. It were too long to go over particular remedies which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind, sometimes purging the ill-humors, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping the digestion, sometimes increasing the appetite, sometimes heal ing the wounds and the ulcerations thereof and the life; and therefore I will conclude with the chief reason of all, which is that it disposeth the constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of reformation. For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself or to call himself to account, nor the pleasure of that most pleasant life which consists in our daily feeling ourselves to become better. The good parts he hath he will learn to show to the full and use them dextrously, but not much to increase them; the faults he hath he will learn how to hide and color them, but not much to amend them, like an illmower that mows on still and never whets his scythe. Whereas, with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof. NOVELS. FROM TROLLOPE'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. O man can work long at any trade without being brought to consider much whether that which he is daily doing tends to evil or to good. I have written many novels, and have known many writers of novels, and I can assert that such thoughts have been strong with them and with myself. But in acknowledging that these writers have received from the public a full measure of credit for such genius, ingenuity or perseverance as each may have displayed, I feel that there is still wanting to them a just appreciation of the excellence of their calling and a general understanding of the high nature of the work which they perform. By the common consent of all mankind who have read, poetry takes the highest place in literature. That nobility of expression and all but divine grace of words which she is bound to attain before she can make her footing good is not compatible with prose. Indeed, it is that which turns prose into poetry. When that has been in truth achieved, the reader knows that the writer has soared above the earth and can teach his lessons somewhat as a god might teach. He who sits down to write his tale in prose makes no such attempt, nor does he dream that the poet's honor is within his reach; but his teaching is of the same nature, and his lessons all tend to the same end. By either, false sentiments may be fostered, false notions of humanity may be engendered, false honor, false love, false worship, may be created; by either, vice instead of virtue may be taught; but by each, equally, may true honor, true love, true worship and true humanity be inculcated, and that will be the greatest teacher who will spread such truth the widest. But at present, much as novels, as novels, are bought and read, there exists still an idea, a feeling, which is very prevalent, that novels at their best are but innocent. Young men and women, and old men. and women too, read more of them than of poetry, because such reading is easier than the reading of poetry; but they read them as men eat pastry after dinner-not without some inward conviction that the taste is vain, if not vicious. I take upon myself to say that it is neither vicious nor vain. But all writers of fiction who have desired to think well of their own work will probably have had doubts on their minds before they have arrived at this conclusion. Thinking much of my own daily labor and of its nature, I felt myself at first to be much afflicted, and then to be deeply grieved, by the opinion expressed by wise and thinking men as to the work done by novelists. But when, by degrees, I dared to examine and sift the sayings of such men, I found them to be sometimes silly, and often arrogant. I began to inquire what had been the nature of English novels since they first became common in our own language, and to be de |