opinions of relatives as to a man's power, Dr. Wendell Holmes declares to be very commonly of little value; not so much because they sometimes over-rate their own flesh and blood, as some may suppose ; as because, on the contrary, they are quite as likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the habit of considering like themselves. Vile habetur quod domi est, Seneca tersely says. Edmund Burke, in early life, was not happy at home-there being none among the household on Arran Quay to sympathise with his dreams and his aspirations. "He might think himself a genius," says one of his many biographers, "but it was not to be expected that his own relations should yet think him one." Describing his position and influence in Lord Rockingham's administration, Mr. Macknight observes that it is, after all, a man's own relations who generally look with the least confidence on his long wrestle with adversity, and are most astonished when the tide turns, and a great victory succeeds to what had seemed to them a mere hopeless toil. "To some of the Irish Nagles on the Blackwater, the news that Edmund had been taken into the confidence of the great Whig Lord Rockingham, must have seemed as extraordinary as it did to Joseph's brethren that he should have become so great a man in hostile Egypt." Son pays le crut fou, says La Fontaine, of a Greek sage; mais quoi! aucun n'est prophète chez soi. Of Joan of Arc, and her early mental struggles, a French historian writes: "It behoves her to find in the bosom of her family some one who would believe in her this was the most difficult part of all." Nonrecognition, disparagement, cold obstruction. Societies and families, as Goethe says, behave in the same way to their dearest members, towns to their worthiest citizens. Consuelo advising Anzoleto to quit Venice, reminds him that "no person is a prophet in his own country. This is a bad place for one who has been seen running about in rags, and where any one may come to say of you, 'I was his protector, I saw his hidden talent, it was I who recommended him and procured his advance." Descartes had to support with philosophic pa tience the scorn of his family, impatient of a philosopher in it. Jean Bodin, neglected and slighted in his own land, exulted in the welcome accorded to his books in the English Universities, which printed as well as prized them: "il n'est pas rare que nous ayons besoin d'apprendre des étrangers ce que valent nos compatriotes," observes M. Léon Feugère. Every rule has its exceptions, and most proverbs too. The case of St. Catharine, of Sienna, is cited by a Protestant biographer as "an exception to the rule that excludes a prophet from honour in his own country." The biographer of Edward Irving, recounting with enthusiasm the details of his reception in Annandale in 1828, adds that "for once the proverb seems to have failed. He had honour in his own country, where gentle and simple flocked to hear him,"-neighbouring ministers shutting up their kirks on the Sunday when he preached, and going the "long Sabbath-day's journey" across the Annandale moors to hear him, along with their people. La Bruyère points out on the one side a man recognised by the world at large as a master-mind, honoured and sought after by eager admirers, but at home, of no account at all; petit dans son domestique et aux yeux de ses proches: on the other hand, a man who is a prophet in his own house and country, who enjoys a vogue that is confined to his immediate surroundings, and who s'applaudit d'un mérite rare et singulier qui lui est accordé par la famille dont il est l'idole. But exceptions to a rule are commonly taken in confirmation of it; and the rule as to a prophet's home acceptance is held to be only confirmed, not disproved, by here and there a stray example in history to the contrary; such as Arnold, of Brescia, being rescued from captivity by some of those partisan nobles of Campania by whom he was honoured as a prophet: "Tanquam prophetam in terrâ suâ cum omni honore habebant." Or, as the experience, highly exceptional, of young Bernard of Clairvaux, the "strange and irresistible force" of whose character, as the historian of Latin Christianity describes it, enthralled his brothers one after another, and at length his sister. Off to the monastery of Clairvaux they trooped, a complete monastic brotherhood. The youngest boy lingered a short time with his aged father, and then joined the rest. "Even the father died a monk of Clairvaux in the arms of Bernard." But it was not, we are duly reminded, on his own kindred alone that Bernard wrought with this commanding power. "When he was to preach, wives hurried away their husbands, mothers withdrew their sons, friends their friends, from the resistless magic of his eloquence." And those that went-what went they out into the wilderness to hear? A prophet? Yea, and almost more than a prophet, by the verdict of his own country and of his father's house. WE DESIRED BOON: REALIZED BANE. PSALM cvi. 15; lxxviii. 22 sq. E read of those who tempted God in the desert, that He gave them their request, and sent leanness withal into their soul. So they did eat meat and were well filled, for He gave them their own desire; but while their meat was yet in their mouths, His wrath came upon them and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel. A latter-day poetess, almost masculine in genius, as in outspoken vigour of diction, tells us that "God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face,— and sometimes poison in the gift. Well therefore may the authoress of these lines, which in their original import are scarcely applicable to our theme, make a distressed soul utter a petition that certainly is so :— "'tis written in the Book, He heareth the young ravens when they cry; And we, who make excuses for the rest, Like other creatures, craving offal-food, That He would stop His ears to what I said, And listen only to the run and beat Of this poor, passionate, helpless blood. Ne mihi contingant quæ volo, sed quæ sunt utilia: the aspiration has been accepted as an adage, worthy of all acceptation, and of acceptation by all. “Mais, sans cesse ignorants de nos propres besoins, Nous demandons au ciel ce qu'il nous faut le moins." To Shakspeare for an illustration. Pompey, not the Great, is anxious for Divine sanction to speed his ambitious resolves to a prosperous issue. If the great gods be just, he assumes, they will assist the deeds of justest men,-and therefore himself, as pre-eminently entitled to that designation. He is impatient, too, for this manifest favour from above; and sage Menecrates takes occasion not only to check his impatience in particular, but to give him a salutary warning on the subject in general : "We, ignorant of ourselves, Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers By losing of our prayers." Xenophon tells us of Socrates, that when he prayed, his petition was only this-that the gods would give to him those things that were good; which he did, forasmuch as they alone knew what was good for man. But he who should ask for gold or silver, or increase of dominion, acted not, in his opinion, more wisely than one who should pray for the opportunity to fight, or game, or anything of the like nature; the consequence of which, being altogether doubtful, might turn, for aught he knew, not a little to his disadvantage." For, "why, alas! do mortal men in vain But, watched by robbers, for their wealth are slain; When guilty of their vows, to fall at home; Murdered by those they trusted with their life, A favoured servant, or a bosom wife. There is a Greek prayer by an unknown poet, but highly commended by the most illustrious of Socrates' disciples: that sovran Jove would grant his subjects good, whether they pray for it or not; and avert from them evil, even though they pray for it. Ζεῦ βασιλεῦ, τὰ μὲν ἐσθλὰ καὶ εὐχομένοις καὶ ἀνεύκτοις And it is to Plato's dialogue upon prayer that we owe the instructions imparted by Socrates to Alcibiades, upon which Addison has founded a paper in the Spectator. In that dialogue we read how Socrates met Alcibiades going to his devotions, and observing his eyes to be fixed upon the ground with great seriousness and attention-for even that fastest of fast young men could, it seems, be slow enough to say his prayers-told him that he had reason to be thoughtful upon that occasion, since it was possible for a man to bring down. evil upon himself by his own supplications, and that those things which the gods sent him in answer to his petitions might turn to his destruction. This, says he, may not only happen when a man prays for what is mischievous in its own nature, as Edipus implored the gods to sow dissension between his sons; but when he prays for what he believes would be for his good, and against what he believes would be to his detriment. This the philosopher shows must necessarily happen among us, since most men are blinded with ignorance, prejudice, or passion, which hinder them from seeing what things are really eligible for them. And all this, as his manner is, the philosopher teaches by examples. It seems allowed that Juvenal took the cue of his tenth Satire, as well as Persius of his second, from the Dialogue of Plato aforesaid. "Evertêre domos totas, optantibus ipsis, Dii faciles. Nocitura togâ, nocitura petuntur |