sideration in short, sink the idea of essay, and take up with that of Latin. Lastly, as regards Greek Iambics, as we are very bad at them ourselves, all the advice we dare give, is never to put down more than half a line, which does not also occur in Eschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides.

But to take a more serious view of the subject, surely such a system of doing copies as we have described, too prevalent as it is among us, must have an actively bad effect, both morally and intellectually. Morally, it must tend to rendering us indifferent about appropriating and not disowning, whether it be in conversation, or in writing what is not our own: intellectually, it must lead us to attach far too great importance to expression, to look rather to the manner in which a thought is given, than to the thought itself: in other words, to admire Pope more than Wordsworth, and fine gaudy language, rather than simple straight forward English. It would be well for us if we bear in mind even in doing copies, that a swell binding does not render a book a good book, and that it is not the coat that makes the gentleman; and carry with us a distinct idea of meum and tuum as regards borrowing from any author.

GERMANS, FRENCH, AND ENGLISH.

Although as far as one can see, the great Peace Congress, that was to have done such wonders, will hardly write its own name in the history of Europe, yet it must have been very interesting to an observant auditor, to listen to and note the different styles of the French, German, and English orators. The French speeches were most likely in an Epigrammatic and pointed style. The argument drawn mostly from neat little ideas about brotherhood and so forth, got up mostly for effect. The Germans perhaps came out with long rolling sentences, with loads of sesquipeda lian words, many of them put together for the occasion; the arguments consisting of elaborate and exceedingly unpractical theories, and sometimes rather obscure ones. The English produced common sense, and downright practical

arguments, with practical observation for their origin and with a practical end in view. This (as far as one's limited reading and still more limited observation suggests) is a very rough sketch of the three national characters, or rather we should say national intellectual characters. A German will go and shut himself up in his study, and patiently theorise away in æternum on any given subject. A Frenchman will take the easiest view, and the first that suggests itself. And the Englishman will make a straightforward examination, a medium between the two extremes. The author of a very clever essay entitled "The Drama of the French Revolution," reprinted in "The Essays from the Times," does not give a bad idea of a great feature of the French character, as if they were always acting a play, instead of the stern reality of life, when he represents their last revolution as a drama. One will perhaps not be wrong in saying shortly, that the French live as if their aim was to be a spectacle to the world and to each other, the English it must be confessed, look to their own present advantage, the Germans live as if they forget both themselves and the world. Coleridge* (after an admirable classification of the intellectual characteristics and products of the three nations, which I shall leave to those who are interested in the subject to read for themselves, and only assure them it is well worth it) gives a general view of the relation of the mind, as regards time, from which particular characteristics are deducible, or to which they are referable. He makes the Germans, past and future; the English, past and present; the French, present. Does the short sketch we just gave square with this? I think so. If what we say of the Germans be true, they are surely not of the present, their acquisitive power of the fruits of others, intellect is of the past, and their visionariness of the future. The French, if they live to amuse and be amused, are only for the present. And lastly the Englishman's cui-bono views are his present feature; his much boasted nationality his past. The French and German characters are not badly expressed by their respective languages. The French is

* Friend vol iii, note to Essay I.

the language of conversation. And are not the Frenchmen renowned for their talking, their vivid and pointed conversation? It is almost a proverb; while I do not recollect to have heard of any book of European reputation in that language. The German is the language of writing their long swinging sentences one would imagine, would require to be reviewed to be taken in, particularly when containing a German idea. Then is it not true that Germans are much greater writers than conversationists? Is it not their generally received character, I mean? One has heard of the thousands of books that are published every year at Leipsic and other great German book places. Of our own language nothing has been said—and, though it will seem rather paradoxical, because we know it best. From using things, and language among the rest, every day we get to lose sight of their peculiarities: acquaintance makes what is peculiar seem natural and general to all language. To be able to look into his own language thoroughly, would, I suppose, require a man who understands several languages indifferently.

There has been a good deal of repetition in this article, we are afraid, but we trust our readers will pardon it, on consideration of the writer being conscious of it, and willing to have avoided it, had his powers of arrangement, or method, don't they call it? been sufficiently developed. The English, too, may have been treated with partiality; if it be so, you must recollect that the "Rugbæan" is an Englishman, and like all Englishmen is proud of his country.

Hebe's bloom and swan's down in suitable proportions. But somehow or other this eternal amatory sing-song must have become very monotonous after a time! When one had spent two or three days languidly under an orange-tree with alternate strains on the lyre, and striking similes; when the stream beneath and the sky above had exhausted all their stores of brilliancy and freshness in the depicting of one's inamorata's form and character, one must have got rather tired of the fun. But still, though Provence has let its Trouvéres go the way of all flesh, and has not been slow in following them itself as a nation, there are, even in these cloudy, smoky days of philosophy and manufactures, genteel troubadours, who spend happily-languid days under imaginative orange-trees, and sing to imaginative fair ones. There is this difference, that the objects of their verse are no longer "Jolies," but "Spirituelles." A man has as great an objection to calling his mistress Phyllis as he has to calling himself Damon. So the drawing-room style has died out; there no longer figure in Albums, "Creatures not of earth, nor heaven :" Cupid's darts are considered common-place, and hurled back in scorn into his own flame: Carew and Lovelace have given place to the depictors of Ideal Beauty. And not only do they clothe Abstract beauty with an earthly form, and send the impersonation by the pennypost in a Valentine, but have the impudence to tell the public which are their opinions of Beauty, and declare that Beauty personified is no more indifferent to them than they to it. Nature's excellencies are not fair enough to be introduced into a simile; it is no longer sunshine in the form, but concentrated essence of sunshine in the heart that satisfies the audacious songsters. Now the god of Love has seated himself on the Delphic tripod and utters sweet common-places shrouded in smoke. Ambiguous as of old, "My love is like the red, red Rose," says the Delphic Oracle. What, my love objective or subjective? How like? In its tendency to blush or fall to pieces? Answer this thou cloud-compelling German; school thyself at Love's shrine, and apply thine objective theories! It is customary with the love-poets of the present day, to ad

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dress their lyrics or whatever they may be to "Some One." There is no necessity for such fiction in the case, why not speak the truth like a man, and address "No One?" Half the nonsensical madrigals of the day are written by penny-a-liners, with hackneyned ideas; and the other half by fools without any at all; three fourths to "No One."

NATURAL HISTORY OF A PENCIL.

It was a good pencil-a very good pencil, and at the same time a modest pencil. It never attempted to write its own biography, as some ambitious B B drawing pencils would like to do but can't. No, it was an humble penny pencil, and got me to write its history for it; not to show its merits, to praise the blackness of its deeds, or tell of how many gems of literature it has proudly looked down upon, but rather to teach the world the moral of its story. To tell of its birth, or young days, would be superfluous, as all babies are alike: suffice it to say, that it was justly proud of its ascent from the Cumberland mines, and its descent from the top of a Cedar of Lebanon. Nay, more, it has been known to assert that an ancestor, twenty-three generations back, materially assisted in the building of Solomon's temple. So much for its hereditary nobility! If to be patient under the many changes of life is a proof of true nobility it proved itself to be "a chip of the old block." Its first entry into the world, after leaving the dear domestic circle of its brothers and sisters, was into the very chaotic world of a Sixth fellow's pocket. To tell of the companions it there met would be to assert that we know the arcana of those mysterious depths, which can never be. Our hero entered the apartment with the feelings that it was rather infra dig: didn't fraternize with the Psalter found therein, thought the side pocket of a paletot conducive rather to warmth than health, but knew its station in life, so didn't complain. Soon came to light again, but merely to be mutilated, thought this a most barbarous practice. It asked me in after-life, I remember, whether I could defend this treatment. I referred it to the analogous

case of tongue-cutting to make infants speak distinctly: it returned fully satisfied to my pocket. The great advantage which our hero enjoyed was an insight into all his master's secrets; it knew, often better than he himself, whether he had a cold or an head-ache, for it entered the fact on a small piece of paper. But there was one great evil which was the bane of its existence; it was this:-it seemed to be an established law of school society that no distinction between meum and tuum should be observed with respect to pencils; therefore it was continually changing masters, which vexed greatly its faithful and affectionate spirit. So

at one time it took most scientific notes on Aristotle; then, lent for a minute or two, became an active agent in the delineation of a series of fancy portraits: then passed into the possession of a crafty-minded mathematical fellow, who had previously calculated the chances of the former owner demanding it back, also the chances of his getting it, and found the former to be one to twenty, and the latter one to fifty. Here it went through a course of quadratic equations, such as would puzzle any one who had not an unknown quantity of brains in his head. The gradual decay common to men, long-tailed baboons, and pencils, now came upon it. How I acquired it, and succoured it. in its old age, I think it advisable not to relate; I don't think I bought it.

A SMILE.

SAY what thou art, O thou divinest birth,
That comest o'er us so mysteriously;
And, as thou comest, goest suddenly
To teach us that thou art not of the earth.
O whisper me, what is the spell thou hast,
Wherewith thou brightenest the saddest face,
And clothest it with such a heavenly grace,
To vanish when thy radiance is past.

O thou art made of heavenly essences,
The which thou dost communicate to men,
And giving, snatchest them away again,
As if too low for such deliciousness.

O how enchanting oft the plainest face, If thou dost condescend to hover there, Who givest oft to it the larger share, Or thinking it most needful of thy grace. Thou art the pretty signal of the mind, That tellest there is happiness within, And seekest, in thy happiness, to win The wishes and the love of all mankind. Thou art a fairy creature-heaven sent,

To be a balm to every pain and smart,
And gladden all the corners of the heart
With thy soft moments of sweet ravishment.
Why dost thou never stay with us, sweet being,
But lovest ever to fresh sweets to roam,
And vanishest as soon as thou hast come,
And leavest us all lonely in thy fleeing.

O teach me where thy magic chamber is,
That I may flee away to thee, and dwell
For ever with thee in thy golden cell,
And revel in thine ecstacy of bliss.
For there is naught in nature fair as thou,
And nothing earthly that can match with thee,
For fairer thou than dew-drop on the lea,
Or the warm sunlight on the mountain's brow.
Thou art like a bright star that drops from heaven,
Like the soft shadow of a seraph's wing,
Or stray beam of celestial blazoning,
That to us as a benison is given.

And if we may not learn whence thou dost come,
Nor know the secret of thy vanishing,

And where thou dost abide, and whence dost spring, Nor go to thee in thy delicious home;

SONNET I.

Deep, boundless is the heart's immensity!
Thou canst not sail across thy brother's; no,
Nor fathom his deep ocean-waters; be
Thyself the ruler of thine own deep sea!
His heart is pathless, though thy constant prow
Be set the undivided waves to plough.
Only the fruit of friendship is for thee,
The fruit that ripens on its parent bough.
Yet oft when love has duly, truly sought
Some silent resting-place for love is found,
The sweet green islet of a kindred thought,
Whence thou may'st see the little distance round.
There stay content! Knowledge is dearly bought,
At price of foundering where the rocks abound.

SONNET II.

So look around on what thou see'st with love,
And what thou see'st not, with the gentle eye
Of faith in goodness look on lovingly.
In the blue brightness of the heavens above,
With faithful heart ranges the peaceful dove,
Nor tempts the darkness of a seaward sky:
So trust in what is bright nor dangers prove.
There is a region where all skies are clear,
The heaven above is ever bright for all,
There heart may close with heart; and here below,
Not on the surface is the anchor dear,

By which thy love is fixed. Fall, silence, fall

On what we think to test but cannot know.

A storm came rushing from the furious north.
Wildly the winds in madness poured them forth,
Over a moorland lone,

The lowly lily bent its head,
And as it bowed it meekly said,

"Thy will be done."

A giant oak which from its prime
Had borne the blasts of storm and time,
Cheered by the kindly sun,
Groaning it crashed across my way,
And as it fell it seemed to say,

"Thy will be done."