'It is poor work and poor pay, is fame,' said Mr. W* * * * * * *, in the last conversation I had with him.

He gave it for his opinion, that whoever could. make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of Politicians put together.-SWIFT, Voyage to Brobdingnag, ch. vii.

Short is the time which every man lives, and small the nook of the earth where he lives; and short too the longest posthumous fame, and even this only continued by a succession of poor human beings, who will very soon die, and who know not even themselves, much less him who died. long ago.

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He who has a vehement desire for posthumous fame does not consider that every one of those who remember him will himself also die very soon; then again also they who have succeeded them, until the whole remembrance shall have been extinguished as it is transmitted through men who foolishly admire and perish. But suppose that those who will remember are even immortal, and that the remembrance will be immortal, what then is this to thee? And I say not what is it to the dead, but what is it to the living?—Thoughts of M. A. ANTONINUS, by G. Long, iii. 10, iv. 19.

The voluntary principle, so powerful in the diffusion of Christianity, in works of mercy, in

struggles for liberty, and in scientific discovery, has invariably proved quite unequal to the regular, constant and universal performance of laborious official duties, without any hope of profit, or of praise.-H. W. RUMSEY, Public Health: right use of Records, &c. 1860, Pref.

The things of this world were given to us by God for the relief of our necessities, and not for the reward of virtue; because the proper reward of that belonged to an other world. (Caliph Omar.) ·S. OCKLEY, Hist. of the Saracens.

The Loyal should be taught to rely more upon themselves, and less upon the Government, in their own defence against the disloyal :-It was this, he thought, that formed and kept up a national character. While every one was accustomed to rely upon the Government, upon a sort of commutation for what they paid to it, personal energy went to sleep and the end was lost; that, in England, he observed, every man who had the commonest independence, one, two, five, or six hundred, or a thousand a year, had his own little plan of comfort, his favorite personal pursuit, whether his library, his garden, his hunting, or his farm, which he was unwilling to allow anything (even his own defence,) to disturb ; he therefore deceived himself into a notion, that if there was a storm it would not reach him, and went on his own train till it was actually broken in upon by force. This led to supineness and apathy as to public exertion, which would in the end ruin us; the disposition, therefore, must be changed by

forcing them to exert themselves, which would not be if Government did every thing in civil war, they nothing:- hence his wish for a Volunteer force. -DUKE OF WELLINGTON, Memoirs of R. Plumer Ward; Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxvii, p. 267.

the decline of patriotism,—the careless disregard of everything except sustenance and daily amusement, which paved the way for the empire, and marked the downfall of liberty.-ARCHDEACON BROWNE, Hist. of Roman Classical Literature, Book I, c. viii.

It falls to the lot of few to be really happy. Secret sorrows and domestic troubles come on all men; but all may find in honorable ambition something for which to live and work. Riches may not be won, nor any of those homely pleasures which cherish youth and comfort old age; but life will have been a success, if, even in its closing scenes, it brings with it the one object for which we have risen early and late taken rest. To young men we would say, in conclusion, be not discouraged, though years roll on and leave you apparently standing still; if only a man maintains his independence, the day will come at last when he will win his laurels also. Volunteer Service Gazette, 21 Nov. 1863.

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VII. MAKING BOOKS.

WRITING HISTORY.

T is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have anything else to amuse them. There must be an external impulse;-emulation, or vanity, or avarice. The progress which the understanding makes through a book, has more) pain than pleasure in it. Language is scanty, and inadequate to express the nice gradations and mixtures of our feelings. No man reads a book of science from pure inclination. The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, which contain a quick succession of events. —JOHNSON, Boswell's Life, 1 May 1783.

More lasting effect was produced by Translators, who, in later times, have corrupted our idiom as much as, in early times, they enriched our vocabulary; and to this injury the Scotch have greatly contributed for composing in a language which is not their mother-tongue, they necessarily acquire an artificial and formal style, which, not so much through the merit of a few as owing to the perseverance of others, who for half a century seated themselves on the bench of criticism, has almost

superseded the vernacular English of Addison and Swift. Our journals, indeed, have been the great corrupters of our style, and continue to be so; and not for this reason only. Men who write in newspapers, and magazines, and reviews, write for present effect; in most cases this is as much their natural and proper aim, as it would be in public speaking; but when it is so, they consider, like public speakers, not so much what is accurate or just, either in matter or manner, as what will be acceptable to those whom they address. Writing also under the excitement of emulation and rivalry, they seek, by all the artifices and efforts of an ambitious style, to dazzle their readers; and they are wise in their generation, experience having shown that common minds are taken by glittering faults, both in prose and verse, as larks are with lookingglasses.

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Even with the better part of the Public that Author will always obtain the most favorable reception, who keeps most upon a level with them. in intellectuals, and puts them to the least trouble of thinking. He who addresses himself with the whole endeavors of a powerful mind to the understanding faculty, may find fit readers; but they will be few. He who labors for posterity in the fields of research, must look to posterity for his reward. SOUTHEY, Colloquies, xiv.

If phraseology is to be changed as words grow uncouth by disuse, or gross by vulgarity, the history of every language will be lost; we shall no longer