CHAPTER VII. NATURAL SCIENCE. "Such pleasures are pure and refined; they are congenial to the character of a rational being; they are more permanent than sensitive enjoyments; they afford solace in the hours of retirement from the bustle of business, and consolation amid the calamities and afflictions to which humanity is exposed."-DICK. NATURAL science opens a wide field for study and recreation. The book of nature and the book of revelation, written by the same unerring finger, are in perfect and beautiful harmony, demonstrating the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty Creator. Botany is a favourite science, and a very pleasant one for young ladies. The care of flowers is represented by Milton as not unworthy of Eve in her state of perfect innocence and bliss; he describes her "Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, oft stooping to support Each flower of tender stalk, whose head, though gay Hung drooping unsustained; them she upstays Herself, though fairest unsupported flower, From her best prop so far, and storm so nigh." The nomenclature of this science is rather difficult to learn; but, that obstacle once overcome, all the rest is delightful, and many pleasing and highly attractive volumes have been prepared as guides to the popular student of this most interesting branch of science. Mineralogy and geology will prove sources of high enjoyment to the lover of nature. The knowledge of these sciences is usually communicated through the medium of popular lectures. The specimens necessary to illustrate their study are seldom within reach of the retired reader; lectures, however, should not be deemed sufficient; they should be followed by a course of reading and observation. Chemistry must be acquired in the same way, for the sake of the experiments; but it is wrong to give up the study entirely the moment the impression of these splendid experiments has passed away; many valuable hints in domestic economy have been given, which should be treasured up for future use; the "manipulations" of a housekeeper will test their value. Conchology and Entomology will furnish rational recreation, which may save you from hours of ennui, or redeem your time from gossip and folly. Astronomy is a science whose sublimity exalts the mind, and whose variety gives infinite scope to the imagination. Its amazing truths reveal the power and wisdom of the Almighty Creator, and give us a faint glimpse of the magnificence of that light, unapproachable, where dwells the King eternal, immutable, and full of glory. In all these branches of study, however, it cannot be too strongly impressed on the mind that the mere hearing of lectures, without personal study and reading, is nearly, if not altogether valueless; and the more fully the student has stored her mind beforehand, the larger will be the amount of information that the lecturer will be able to communicate to her. CHAPTER VIII. ENGLISH LITERATURE. "I have been four days confined to my chamber by a cold, which has already kept me from three plays, nine sales, five shows, and six card-tables, and put me seventeen visits behindhand; and the doctor tells my mamma, that if I fret and cry, it will settle in my head, and I shall not be fit to be seen these six weeks."-RAMBLER. A TASTE for reading is indeed a never-failing source of enjoyment. How many vacant hours of life would pass heavily away, were it not for the companionship of books! During a course of school education, very little time can be devoted to miscellaneous reading. Many are the illustrious names stored up in memory, whose more intimate acquaintance is now to be sought. The long-wished period has arrived; but is it a season of leisure? Let the young lady who is out in society answer. Innumerable are the demands upon her time; like the belle quoted at the beginning of the chapter, she might say, "If at any time I can gain an hour by not being at home, I have so many things to do, so many alterations to make in my clothes, so many visitants' names to read over, so many invitations to accept or refuse, so many cards to write, so many fashions to consider, that I am lost in confusion. When shall I either stop my course, or so change it as to want a book?" If all young ladies had thus given themselves over to frivolity, we might write in vain. Some there are, we trust, who, abjuring such frivolities, find time for the improvement of the mind. "The world has people of all sorts," says Locke; literature has books of all sorts, and how shall one know, among the infinite variety, what to choose, or where to begin? The best writers in the English language should be known to every well-educated young lady. She will, of course, be able to read but a small portion of what they have written, yet she may by so doing become familiar with their style and sentiments; she may at least save herself from the blunders and perplexities into which she will inevitably fall, if ignorant of English classic literature. It happened one evening in the course of a little play, called Characters, among some young people, that the name of Pope was given. A very fashionably-educated young lady whispered to her next neighbour, "Pray tell me who they mean—the pope ?” "No; A. Pope." "Why, which pope?-there have been thousands." "Not a Roman pontiff-our English Pope, the poet." "I never heard of such a man in my life; is he now living?" asked the young lady. Some of the older English poets are now almost unintelligible, from their quaint phraseology and obsolete words. Chaucer and Surrey have been modernized; but there is little before the Augustan age of English literature that affords much pleasure to the reader. In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne of Great Britain. "In this reign," says Campbell, "the English mind put forth its energies in every direction, exalted by a purer religion, and enlarged by new views of truth. This was an age of loyalty, adventure, and generous emulation. The chivalrous character was softened by intellectual pursuits, while the genius of chivalry itself still lingered, as if unwilling to depart, and paid his last homage to a warlike and female reign. A degree of romantic fancy remained in the manners and superstitions of the people; and allegory might be said to parade the streets in their public pageants and festivals. Quaint and pedantic as those allegorical exhibitions might often be, they were nevertheless more expressive of erudition, ingenuity, and moral meaning, than they had been in former times. "The philosophy of the highest minds still partook of a visionary character. A poetical spirit infused itself into the practical heroism of the age; and some of the worthies of that period seem less like ordinary men, than beings called forth out of fiction, and arrayed in the brightness of her dreams. They had high thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy. The life of Sir Philip Sidney was poetry put into action." That illustrious age furnished a constellation of genius, which will be conspicuous and brilliant in the hemisphere of literature to the end of time-Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh, Shakspeare, Jonson, Bacon. The last named was born in the reign of Elizabeth, as we may remember from his ready reply when the queen asked him his age: "Just two years younger than your Majesty's happy reign." Edmund Spenser, the first in point of time in this reign, immortalized himself by his Faery Queen. It is an elaborate allegorical poem, of which only six of the original twelve books remain; the others are said to have been trusted to the care of a servant, who lost them on his passage from Ireland to England. The adventures of a knight personifying a particular virtue, as Courtesy, Holiness, &c., occupy each book. Such a host of sentiments and ideas, also personified, attend the knight, that, although we acknowledge the unparalleled beauty of his fancy, the profusion bewilders. Queens, fairies, knights, dwarfs, and giants, acknowledge the enchanter's spell, and rise in gorgeous arms and apparel at the touch of his wand. Mountain and woodland, "plants both humble and tall," cottage and castle, fresh flowerets and lonely moss, forest or cavern and lovely lake, all glide before the mind like a moving panorama. Such exuberance of fancy belonged to that poet who has been called "the inspirer of Milton," less chaste and refined than his successor, but glowing with the fire of genius. Spenser was the friend of Sidney and Raleigh. Sir Philip Sidney was the author of an incomplete romance, called Arcadia, which is now nearly obsolete. He was more distinguished for his conversation and his elegant manners, his bravery and noble heart, than for his writings, though they have been said to possess "fervour of eloquence" and "purity of thought." Sir Walter Raleigh is associated in our minds with the colonization of Virginia, and is better known as a distinguished navigator, a soldier, an accomplished courtier, and an unfortunate one, than as a poet. During his long confinement in the Tower, he wrote many fugitive poems, and a prose work, entitled "A History of the World," which is now nearly forgotten. Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England, wrote upon law, history, the advancement of learning, and many other subjects. He established human knowledge upon a new and firm basis-facts, tested by experiment. His prose partakes of the figurative style of the age, though always clear and precise. A volume of Essays, which, to use his own words, "come home to men's business and bosoms," retains its place as a popular book in almost every library. Shakspeare! for how many thousand volumes has this immortal name served as a text! "An overstrained enthu |