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tion, and with a humble gratitude to God, who has bestowed upon me so rich a blessing. For no fortune in the power of our friends to heap up for us can equal in value the love of study and contemplation. Riches make to themselves wings and flee away, but these qualities abide with us at all seasons, and under every dispensation. They are fountains which Winter cannot harden, nor Summer dry up; be it our care that no hostile hand poisons the purity of their waters. This sentiment, indeed, I am proud to share with men who make the fame of their country. Boyle, than whom a purer or a nobler spirit never adorned our literature, declared that he valued life only for the improvement of knowledge and the exercise of piety. Heinsius, the keeper of the library at Leyden, used to say, that, in closing the door of that beloved chamber, he seemed to release himself from ambition, avarice, and every other vice, and to be admitted into the company of the greatest intellects."

WHITE.

"I remember no poet in whom the sentiments we have been admiring were so lively as in Cowper. His verses on the receipt of his mother's picture, have always appeared to me some of the most pathetic in the language. With him, the love of

home was a passion. Like a flower transplanted from its native bed, his delicate and fragile spirit drooped and pined away the moment it was removed out of that atmosphere. His severer strains always grate upon my ear. This gentle bird, whose voice of gratitude ascends so beautifully to Heaven's gate, loses its charm when it takes up the harsh note of satiric song. We soon weary of its croaking round the venerable walls of Westminster*, and long to follow it into the pleasant garden and the boughs of the green-wood tree.

"It was a saying of Thomas à Kempis, that he had sought for rest in all places, and had found it only in seclusion and among books—In angulis et in libellis. Sir Thomas More delighted to return from the tumult of active life to the conversation of his wife and the endearments of his children. His own words convey a livelier picture. Nempe reverso domum cum uxore fabulandum est, garriendum cum liberis. His friend Erasmus has left a charming sketch of his house at Chelsea, within the walls of which dwelt his son and his wife, his three daughters and their three husbands, beside grandchildren. The sweet intercourse of such a family, combined with other causes to postpone the appearance of the Utopia. Our own history fur

Alluding to his Satire on Public Schools, and particularly on Westminster, where he was educated.

nishes several examples of this patriarchal mode of life, which still flourishes in Italy, where the traveller is frequently gratified by the delightful spectacle of a numerous family dwelling together in unity. But, alas! a change has come over our manners. No Lord Chancellor will ever more seek his father's blessing before he ascends the woolsack. There is something very touching in the declaration of an illustrious Roman over the dead body of his mother, that during seventy years he had never been reconciled to her, because they had never disagreed. The frequent dissensions among relations may, I think, often be traced to a want of mutual courtesy and forbearance. It was very wisely remarked by a writer, in our day little known, Dr. Henry King, that

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Of greatest duties to evaporate
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"We satisfy our consciences with good intentions, without remembering, that of all theories, that of affection is the idlest. The most trivial action of our life may be sanctified by a spirit of piety, and recommended by its considerate tenderness. There is a wide difference between tact and sensibility,-one is of the head, the other of the

heart.

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"I have met with a beautiful little apologue in an Eastern poet, which carries with it an affecting moral. Attracted by the fragrance of a clod of earth, he asks, Art thou musk?' 'No.' Art thou amber?' It replied, "I am but common earth, but the rose grew from me; its beneficent virtue penetrated my nature. Were it not for the rose, should be but common earth.' So it is with us. The heart which never glows with a desire to relieve the sufferings or cheer the sorrows of a brother or sister, is but common earth; but every pure feeling, every thought of disinterested love, every sentiment of charity, is a rose growing from the bosom, and penetrating our nature with its delicious and healthful perfume."

My intercourse with Kirke White was, I grieve to say, soon interrupted by the illness of a near and dear relation, by whose bed-side I was detained for several months, until at length it pleased Him who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, to put the seal upon his eyes. When I returned to Cambridge, the melancholy decline of my friend broke upon me, and I saw that death had laid his wand upon another object of my regard. Yet, even at that eleventh hour, there might have been hope.

For some weeks before the student was gathered to his rest, the slightest glance at the pallid and

worn expression of his face would have sufficed to convince any one that without some prompt alteration of his pursuits, the days of the youthful scholar were numbered; and, at one period, I had actually formed the determination of writing to his friends, and stating in distinct terms the horror of his situation. Would that I had done so! He himself was perfectly conscious of his peril, and seemed every hour to detach himself more and more from the bonds of the world, and to prepare for his journey into a far country. Not a word of repining, not a murmur escaped his lips. He looked upon

his past sufferings, his early struggles, and his present afflictions, as so many merciful indications of the love of his Heavenly Father.

"At best," he said to me one evening, "our journey is along a rough and dangerous road; but it should cheer us to remember that every evening brings us nearer to our Father's House, which ever stands open to his prodigal and repentant children. The world is a harsh mistress, but consider how soon Death fetches us home from school. Every new affliction is, to the sincere Christian, only another friendly blow upon the fetters which bind him to his earthly servitude. Oh, happy hour! when the prison-chamber shall brighten with the presence of the angelic minister, and the chains shall fall from our limbs, and the doors open before us. Whom

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