disgust any unfortunate critic who should happen to insinuate, that neutrality at least will be the consequence of his vote; and further extenuates his conduct, by disclosing the important fact, so dear to the Old Tradesman's mind, that they were both "customers."

The Old Tradesman is frequently to be found in the ranks of those august bodies-Parochia! Authorities, the necessary consequence of which is to add to his stature, in imagination at least, some inches, and by the weight of his metal he wedges himself into importance, and makes himself the terror of the paupers, and the envy of his compeers. And here again he asserts his independence of action; he is an unpaid authority-he works for honour instead of money, and doles out largesses of benevolence accordingly. This is his amusement, and he is as much attached to playing at House of Commons when at the Board, as little boys are of playing at soldiers. In fact, he is ever talking, and acting upon what he calls common sense," though it is the only sense perhaps which he does not allow other people to hold in common with him, and the one sense which he posseses the least of-but of that we leave our readers to judge.

The Old Tradesman dies and leaves a legal relict, whose very regret is of a questionable kind. She is his widow, but not a sorrowing one, for she is "provided for." As for his children, they have been taught a life's long scraping up of gold in the "diggins" of trade; they have been taught to earn, and told to save, and the only motive for the latter was, to save. The chain which bound them is burst. They are free at last! Having lived for years the life of grubs, they are changed to butterflies, and the accumulation of the Old Tradesman's sixty years, is probably squandered in two or three.

WILLIAM DALTON.

Notices of New Works.

A Book for a Corner; by Leigh Hunt; 2 vols. 12mo. Chapman and Hall.-The great places and the high places of the world are, it is generally allowed, by no means the most comfortable. It is in the quiet corners and remote nooks, cosy, and impervious to

"The madding crowd's ignoble strife,"

house, any where, in a stormy winter at any hour, aye, even though we heard the midnight chimes, and were obliged to get up at what time the lark tunes "his preposterous matins," as Charles Lamb calls them. Think of what such pleasure would be; and then take an honest critic's word for it, there is a reflex of such pleasure in store for you, on the next holiday in this "Book for a Corner." In it you will find favourite passages from familar authors, with graceful comment and the most refined literary chit chat by their collector himself, so worthy to contribute to the gems which form his text. These two volumes are suited for all sorts of readers; for young and old, men and women, grave and gay; the man of business, and the idler; the literary man, and the general reader. But it is the universalists, "the sympathizer with the entire and genial round of existence," for whom, as their author says, "these volumes are emphatically intended. He then goes on to describe the nature of a universalist as regards books in particular. Our readers will, we think, be glad to hear him speak on a subject with which he is so well acquainted.

The

"A universalist, in one high bibliographical respect, may be said to be the only true reader; for he is the only reader on whom no writing is lost. Too many people approve no book, but such as are representatives of some opinion or passion of their own. They read not to have human nature reflected on them, and so be taught to know and to love everything; but to be reflected themselves, as in a pocket mirror, and so interchange admiring looks with their own narrow cast of countenance. universalist alone puts up with difference of opinion, by reason of his own very difference; because his difference is a right claimed by him in the spirit of universal allowance, and not a privilege arrogated by conceit. He loves poetry and prose, fiction and matter of fact, seriousness contains portions of all the faculties to which they appeal. and mirth, because he is a thorough human being, and A man who can be nothing but serious or nothing but merry, is but half a man. The lachrymal or the risible organs are wanting in him. He has no business to have eyes and muscles like other men. The universalist alone can put up with him, by reason of the very sympathy of his antipathy. He understands the defect enough to pity while he dislikes it. The universalist is the only reader who can make something out of books, for which he has no predilection. He sees differences in them to sharpen his reasoning; sciences which impress on him a sense of his ignorance; nay, languages, which if they do nothing else, amuse his eye and set him thinking on other countries. He will detect old acquaintances in Arabic numerals, and puzzle over a sum or problem, if only to

(except a soldier or a gardener) to whom an army list or an almanack would not be thoroughly disgusting on a rainy day in a country ale-house, when nothing else readable is at hand, and the coach has gone 'just ten minutes."

333

that the experienced amateur in the art of comfort seeks for his dear delight. Now, this dear delight, this rest and stillness, can only be thoroughly enjoyed by those who are fortunate enough to be compelled to toil with head or hands during a great portion of their life. We use the word fortunate advisedly; for, is it not fortunate, that external circumstances should force us to that labour, which is essential to our spiritual development and consequent well-being? "Labour is" indeed "divine;"try and taste the curiosity of it. He is the only man and by her alone can a man obtain all that makes it life to live. . . . . . . Among the blessings with which this fair-featured but hard-handed goddess endows mankind, is Repose, a blessing which none but her votaries can fully appreciate. Here is one of them, who in a green and smiling old age, has come forward with a sort of Manual of Quiet Comfort, for the express delectation of his fellow-workers in their hours of repose. "A Book for a Corner," and by Leigh Hunt! Think what it must be to have Leigh Hunt in his pleasantest mood, all to yourself in a corner, the corner of a thick branched wood, that looks out over a sun-lit landscape of soft swelling hills, green pastures, and bowery homesteads; or haply, the corner of a bay-window in an old country-house, that overlooks a quaint garden, redolent of roses and the apple-scented eglantine; or, yet again, a fireside corner, in any sort of

To such a man, indeed, nothing will come amiss; but perhaps he, more than all others, will delight in the old loves which are assembled here; in the extracts from "Robinson Crusoe" and "Peter Wilkins," from "Gil Blas" and "John Buncle," Marco Polo and Cook, Mrs. Radcliffe and Mrs. Inchbald, Cowley, Shenstone, Thomson and Gray, Steele and Goldsmith. For the man of abstract scientific pursuits, and for the boys and girls who seek only amusement and unconsciously find instruction in it, the "Book for a Corner" will have many charms, as its author hopes it may have, in his beautiful introduction. We do not think it necessary to apologize for giving our

Who, in such a room-full of pictures, would object to his Raphael or Titian? or, in such a collection of music, to his Beethoven, Rossini, or Paiesiello? Our book may have little novelty in the least sense of the word, but it has the best in the greatest sense; that is to say, neverdying novelty; antiquity hung with ivy blossoms and rose buds; old friends with the ever new faces of wit, thought, and affection. Time has proved the genius with which it is filled. Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its variety.' We ourselves have read, and shall continue to read it to our dying day; and we should not say thus much, especially on such an occasion, if we did same, whether they read it in this collection or not."

not know, that hundreds and thousands would do the

readers another passage, from this certainly not the least companion, whose society we can the less dispense with the interesting portion of the work. more we are accustomed to it. The book in this respect resembles a set of pictures which it delights us to live "There are Robinson Crusoes in the moral as well as with, or a collection of favourite songs and pieces of the physical world, and even a universalist may be one of music, which we bind up in volumes, in order that we them; men cast on desert islands of thought and specu-may always have them at hand, or know where to find them. lation-without companionship, without wordly resources -forced to arm and clothe themselves out of the remains of shipwrecked hopes, and to make a house for their solitary hearts, in the nooks and corners of imagination and reading. It is not the worst lot in the world. Turned to account for others, and embraced with patient cheerfulness, it may, with few exceptions, even be one of the best. We hope our volume may light into the hands of such men. Every extract which is made in it, has something of a like second purpose, beyond what appears on its face. There is amusement for those who require nothing more, and instruction in the shape of amusement for those who choose to find it. We only hope that the 'knowing reader' will not think we have asserted inquiry too often. We hate, with our friends, the little boys, nothing so much as the 'moral' that officiously treads the heels of the great Æsop; and which assumes that the Sage has not done his work when he has told his story It is bad enough to be forced to interpret wisdom of any kind; but to talk over such transparent lessons as these is over-weeningly horrible. The little boys will find nothing of the kind to frighten them in this book; and they need not look at the prefaces if they have no mind for them. It is beautiful to think how ignorant our grown memories are of prefaces to books of amusement that were put into our hands when young, and how intensely we remember the best extracts. What grown-up people in general know anything of good Dr. Enfield or didactic Dr. Knox, or even of Percy, the editor of Ancient Reliques? Yet who that has read the Speaker' and Elegant Extracts' ever forgets the soliloquy in Hamlet,' Goldsmith's Beau Tibbs,' and 'Continental Beggar,' or the story of Robin Hood.' The reasons why these, and other as well known things, are omitted, and others, as familiar to every reader, are inserted in these volumes, cannot be better given than by Leigh Hunt himself. We are content to let a better man speak :

"Those exquisite humours of Goldsmith, and the story of Robin Hood, we have omitted, with a hundred others, partly because we had not room for an abundance of things which we admired, chiefly because they did not fall within a certain idea of our plan. The extremely familiar knowledge also which readers have of them might have been another objection, even in a work consisting chiefly of favourite passages; things which imply a certain amount of familiar knowledge, if not in the public at large, yet among readers in general. If any persons should object that some of these also are too familiar, the answer is, that they are of a nature which rendered it impossible for us,-consistently with our plan, to omit them, and that readers in general would have missed them. We allude in particular to the Elegy in a Country Church-yard,' and the Ode on the Prospect of Eton College.' It is the privilege of fine writers, when happy in their treatment of a universal subject of thought or feeling, to leave such an impression of it in the reading world as almost to identify it with everybody's own reflections, or constitute it a sort of involuntary mental quotation. Of this kind are Gray's reflections in the church-yard, and his memories of school-boy happiness. Few people who know these passages by heart, ever think of a church-yard or a school-ground without calling them to mind. The nature and the amount of the reader's familiarity with many other extracts, are the reasons why we have extracted them. They constitute part of the object and essence of the book; for the familiarity is not a vulgar and repulsive one, but that of a noble and ever fresh

The preliminary observations to the various extracts are replete with that cheerful wisdom and light delicate criticism, for which the author is so justly famed. Of soft lazy Thomson, Leigh Hunt glides into the following remarks on a truth which is not as generally recognized as it deserves to be. We, for our part, are certain that the best lovers of the country are fully alive to the advantages which can only be had in a town:-

66 It must be observed of Thomson, however, that he lived so near town as to be able to visit it whenever he chose. His house was at beautiful Richmond. I doubt not he would have been happy anywhere with a few trees and friends, but he liked a play also, and streets, and He would fain not go so far from human movement. London as not to be able to interchange the delights of town and country. And why should anybody that can help it? The loveliest country can be found within that reasonable distance, especially in these days of railroads. You may bury yourself in as healthy, if not as wide, a solitude as if you were in the Highlands; and, in au hour or two you can enhance the pleasures of returning to it with a book of your own buying, or a toy for your children. To resign for ever the convenience and pleasures of intercourse with a great city, would be desired by few; and it would be least of all desired (except under very particular circumstances) by those who can enjoy the country the most; because the power to discern, and the disposition to be pleased, are equally the secrets of the enjoyment in both cases. These, and a congenial occupation, will make a consciencious man happy anywhere, if he has decent health; and if he is sickly, no earthly comforts can supply the want of them, no-not even the affection of those about him; for what is affection, if it show nothing but the good hearts of those who feel it, and is wasted on a thankless temper? Acquirement of information, benignity, something to do, and as many things as possible to love, these are the secrets of happiness in town or country. If White, of Selbourne, had been a town instead of a country clergyman, he would have told us all about the birds in the city as well as the suburbs. We should have had the best reason given us why lime-trees flourish in London smoke; list sof flowers for our windows would have been furnished us, together with their times of blooming; we should have been told of the ratopolis under ground as well as of the drayhorses above it; and, perhaps, the discoverer of the double spiracula in stags would have found the reason why tallow-chandlers have no noses at all."

As every extract in this work is good in its kind, any special criticism is superfluous. All that is necessary for us to do, in an official way, is to indicate the passages that are the most likely to have the charm of novelty for

"Beware though, as Gray says, 'of agues.' It is good,gression." Our great grandsires (honest souls!) seem in the land of poetry, to sleep by a brook; but, in Middlesex, it is best to do it in one's chamber. The best place to take a nap out of doors, in the lovely, but moist country, is a hay field."

rusty cranks, spindles, and pinions, have undergone state, nature, or rather the divine Author of nature, has re-adjustment and lubrication, and the entire concern implanted in the mother's breast a love for her offspring has been set in motion by an impetus which every hour dearer than life itself; but this holy, this beautiful affecincreases in intensity, agreeably to the laws of geometrical tion, requires to be supported by the highest intelligence, progression. A moral volcano has broke forth! All and to be regulated by the most comprehensive knowhuman energies-spiritual and physical-mental and ledge. The mother must reflect that the instinctive corporeal are in a state of excitement. affection she feels for her offspring, she shares in common What may we anticipate! When we peep into the with what are called the lower animals; but the thinking kaleidescope of futurity, and descry the magical muta- love, which will alone enable her to perform her duty to tions and transformations there in operation, we are her child, is the result of experience, and is dependent literally dazzled by the consequences of this "Passion of upon the reasoning powers. The affection shown to a Progression." Such racing-jostling-flying-tumbling child, which has not its basis upon reason, is liable to -scrambling; such steaming-smoking-whizzing- bring the child to shame, and the parent to sorrow; and hissing-whirling, that our "tight little island" appears positively shaken from its intuitive sense of decorum. Imagine every galloway metamorphosed into a Pegasus Turpin's historical feat held in esteem of a snail's gallop -the great St. Leger starting-post removed to the Georgium Sidus-people of ton taking a turn round the sphere terrestrial, via the "South Sea Suspension Bridge," prior to luncheon. Valetudinarians in small "sparrow wherries," inhaling ether pure in realms etherial; the "fancy fair," on butterfly pinions, transporting their Lilliputian wares to the bazaar of Constantinople, for the special benefit of superlunary refugees; and, last in order as in merit first, gentlemen of the press on patent "lightening conductors," racing like shadows of a thought with opposition reports of the "universal scientific association," such being convoked at the Half Moon, at the earnest solicitation of philosophers under the influence of that celestial body.

But let not individuals of narrow prejudices and equally limited comprehension wrap up their conservative hobbies in a fanciful belief that our omnipotent "Passion of Progression" will be confined to purposes of transit; the palace, the senate, the bar; powers, legal, clerical, and medical, moral, political, or economical, all the faculties, functions, and humanities must be brushed up and set in motion, to keep time corresponding with the expeditious tendencies of the age. And Parliament must also be susceptible of a respectful hint for the expediting of their oratorical motions.

The planetary system will be called upon for an acceleration of motion, to keep pace with the progressive Intelligence of the age; old mother Earth will no longer be allowed to move quietly on at a monotonous rate, to which she has given a preference for the last six thousand years, and Archimedes' lever will be brought in action, to afford the venerable dame a circumvolutory lift.

A WORD WITH MOTHERS.

BY PETER PARLEY.

MATERNAL influence is acknowledged by legislators, philosophers, and divines, to be one of the principal causes which gives character to nations as well as to individuals. This truth, so generally allowed both through history and experience, ought, Peter Parley thinks, to be sufficient to induce all who value the interests of society or themselves, to inquire how this influence can be made the most of, and if there are not ways and means to be made available to render a mother the first and best agent in education.

The relationship in which the mother stands to her child is such, that it requires on her part all that intelligence can command, all that self-discipline can accomplish, to enable her to fulfil the important office with which she is invested by nature. The introduction of a thing of helplessness to a sphere of activity-the development of the unfolded germ of human existence, and the sentient principle, and, above all, the fitting of the immortal part for the performance of its duties here, and for an eternal hereafter; this mighty work devolves upon the mother.

To render the mother equal to the sorrows, the trials, The anxieties, and the cares incumbent upon the maternal

hence we frequently observe, in every grade of society, that the maternal love is not returned by filial affection, and that disobedience and slight is shown where the deepest veneration ought to dwell. How often does the fond mother exclaim to her petted darling, "Aye, you will not love me, when you grow a man;" a prophecy suggested by every-day examples of disobedience, which are too fearfully realized.

Why is this? Simply because it is the fashion to let education take its course; because it is the fashion not to study human nature; because the mother knows little of a child's mental and moral economy, and thinks it too much trouble to inquire. In the earliest periods, how often is the child the victim of his own self-will? how often the plague of a whole household, the cause of contention between parents, of anxious days and sleepless nights? As the sun of life arrives, it comes not as a herald of joy, it brings forth no buds of promise, no blossom of hope, but stands "all in a hot and copper sky,"scorching rather than illuminating, and blighting rather than developing.

The mother must reflect that education, in its true sense, is not a mere mechanical task, a set of patent processes, an accumulation of profound dogmas, or a multiplication of cut and dried rules. Nor does it consist in a series of admonitions and corrections, of rewards and punishments, of imprecations and directions, strung together without unity of purpose or dignity of execution, but should present an unbroken chain of measures originating in the same principles-in a knowledge of the constant laws of our nature, practised in the same spirit, a spirit of benevolence and firmness, and tending to the same end-the elevation of man's moral nature, not only above the sensual but even over the intellectual. To this every mother stands pledged, and the great bond, the mind of her child, is drawn out ready for her to sign.

Thus the mother's great endeavour must be to build up humanity; the passions, appetites, intellectual power, mental energy, come alike under her attention in this work. It is for her to strip the grosser husk from passion, and to develope the germ of enthusiasm, which lies concealed within it, to purposes of good; not so much to repress the appetite, as to fix its impulses upon pure and wholesome food, with a view to its imbibing principles of conduct, to imbue the intellect with the morality of pure sympathy, and to turn those mighty manifestations of mind, which seem to rebound from the solid earth as in contempt of it, into the deep channels of humility, that they may run like gentle rivulets to fertilise and keep green the otherwise sterile and sere desert of human existence.

With these views it will be Peter Parley's object to aid parents in the holy work of education; while, in connection with the Children's Page, he will seek to afford lessons and examples, he hopes in the Mother's Page to set forth ideas and principles, that the understanding may be strengthened, and the will directed to the most proper methods of teaching and training, in unison with the laws which govern the human mind in all its operations, and with those eternal truths which are the light and the heat to the moral atmosphere of our feelings and affections.

I kiss their cheeks, and say,-"Thank God for Summer!" too clever.