Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need of a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

CLASSICAL LEARNING.-STORY.

THE importance of classical learning to professional education is so obvious that the surprise is, that it could ever have become matter of disputation. I speak not of its power in refining the taste, in disciplining the judgment, in invigorating the understanding, or in warming the heart with elevated sentiments; but of its power of direct, positive, necessary instruction.

There is not a single nation from the north to the south of Europe, from the bleak shores of the Baltic to the bright plains of immortal Italy, whose literature is not embedded in the very elements of classical learning. The literature of England is, in an emphatic sense, the production of her scholars; of men who have cultivated letters in her universities, and colleges, and grammar-schools; of men who thought any life too short, chiefly because it left some relic of antiquity

unmastered, and any other fame too humble, because it faded in the presence of Roman and Grecian genius.

He who studies English literature without the lights of classical learning, loses half the charms of its sentiments and style, of its force and feelings, of its delicate touches, of its. delightful allusions, of its illustrative associations. Who that reads the poetry of Gray, does not feel that it is the refinement of classical taste which gives such inexpressible vividness and transparency to his diction? Who that reads the concentrated sense and melodious versification of Dryden and Pope, does not perceive in them the disciples of the old school, whose genius was inflamed by the heroic verse, the terse satire, and the playful wit of antiquity? Who that meditates over the strains. of Milton, does not feel that he drank deep at

"Siloa's brook, that flowed

Fast by the oracle of God,"

that the fires of his magnificent mind were lighted by coals from ancient altars?

It is no exaggeration to declare that he who proposes to abolish classical studies, proposes to render, in a great measure, inert and unedifying, the mass of English literature for three centuries; to rob us of the glory of the past, and much of the instruction of future ages; to blind us to excellencies which few may hope to equal and none to surpass; to annihilate associations which are interwoven with our best sentiments, and give to distant times and countries a presence and reality, as if they were in fact his own.

MIND THE GLORY OF MAN-WISE.

THE mind is the glory of man. No possession is so productive of real influence as a highly cultivated intellect. Wealth, birth, and official station may and do secure to their possessors an external, superficial courtesy; but they never did, and they never can, command the reverence of the heart. It

is only to the man of large and noble soul, to him who blends a cultivated mind with an upright heart, that men yield the tribute of deep and genuine respect.

But why do so few young men of early promise, whose hopes, purposes, and resolves were as radiant as the colors of the rainbow, fail to distinguish themselves? The answer is obvious; they are not willing to devote themselves to that toilsome culture which is the price of great success. Whatever aptitude for particular pursuits nature may donate to her favorite children, she conducts none but the laborious and the studious to distinction.

Great men have ever been men of thought as well as men of action. As the magnificent river, rolling in the pride of its mighty waters, owes its greatness to the hidden springs of the mountain nook, so does the wide-sweeping influence of distinguished men date its origin from hours of privacy, resolutely employed in efforts after self-development. The invisible spring of self-culture is the source of every great achievement.

Away, then, young man, with all dreams of superiority, unless you are determined to dig after knowledge, as men search for concealed gold. Remember, that every man has in himself the seminal principle of great excellence, and he may develop it by cultivation if he will TRY. Perhaps you are what the word calls poor. Most of the men whose

What of that?

names are as household words were also the children of poverty. Captain Cook, the circumnavigator of the globe, was born in a mud hut, and started in life as a cabin-boy.

Lord Eldon, who sat on the woolsack in the British parliament for nearly half a century, was the son of a coal merchant. Franklin, the philosopher, diplomatist, and statesman, was but a poor printer's boy, whose highest luxury, at one time, was only a penny roll, eaten in the streets of Philadelphia. Ferguson, the profound philosopher, was the son of a half-starved weaver. Johnson, Goldsmith, Coleridge, and multitudes of others of high distinction, knew the pressure of limited circumstances, and have demonstrated that poverty even is no insuperable obstacle to success.

Up, then, young man, and gird yourself for the work of selfcultivation. Set a high price on your leisure moments. They are sands of precious gold. Properly expended, they will procure for you a stock of great thoughts-thoughts that will fill, stir and invigorate, and expand the soul. Seize also on the unparalleled aids furnished by steam and type in this unequalled

age.

The great thoughts of great men are now to be procured at prices almost nominal. You can, therefore, easily collect a library of choice standard works. But above all, learn to reflect even more than you read. Without thought, books are the sepulchre of the soul,-they only immure it. Let thought and reading go hand in hand, and the intellect will rapidly increase. in strength and gifts. Its possessor will rise in character, in power, and in positive influence.

VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE.-H. L. PINCKNEY.

WHAT is it that unfolds the structure of the human frame, showing, indeed, how fearfully and wonderfully it is made, or has invested Surgery with the admirable precision and dexterity which it now exhibits, or that enables Medicine to conquer all the maladies to which mankind is subject, those plagues and pestilences alone excepted which seem destined by Providence to perform the office of special judgments, and to remain incurable scourges of the human race? What is it that disarms the lightning of its power, elevates valleys and depresses hills, cleaves the ocean, and ascends the sky? What is it that we behold in every elegant and useful art, in the diversified hues that attract the eye, in the dresses and decorations of our persons and our houses, in every implement of husbandry or war, in the subterraneous aqueduct, or the heaven-kissing monument, in the animated canvas, or speaking marble? What are all these but the varied triumphs of the human mind?

And who can estimate their value? To say nothing of that

absolute state of barbarism, "when wild in woods the noble Savage ran," who can measure the difference between the splendid illumination of the nineteenth century and that glimmering condition of society; when astrology assumed to regulate events, and alchymy to transmute all other metals into gold; when ignorance was affrighted by an ignis fatuus, and comets and meteors were regarded as the immediate precursors of the dissolution of the world; when science was considered synonymous with magic, and punished as the evidence of atrocious crimes; when superstition occupied the seat of justice, and guilt or innocence was established by the righteous decisions of fire or water, or the infallible ordeal of military prowess? Science is, indeed, to the moral, what the great orb of day is to the natural world; and as the extinction of the latter would necessarily be followed by universal darkness and decay, so, were art and science lost, society would inevitably relapse into the savagism from which it is their proud boast to have elevated and redeemed it.

KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT RELIGION.-H. L. PINCKNEY.

BUT what is knowledge without religion? Of what avail will it be that thou make the voyage of life with favoring currents and propitious gales, if it only bring you at last to an undone eternity? Of what avail will be all the honors and enjoyments of this transitory scene, if they are destined to terminate in that unending misery which no eloquence can soothe, no learning alleviate, no applause divert? What then! Are you fond of roaming in the fair fields of literature, and can you not be persuaded to cultivate the sacred as well as the profane? Is there no flowery height but Helicon, no golden stream but Hermes? Is there no virtue but in the dreams of Plato, no immortality but in the hopes of Socrates, no heaven but Elysium? Have you no desire to explore the exquisite beauties of Lebanon or Carmel, or to drink of the pure water of