while suns sink and disappear. Not so our dear friend's books. She had the penetration and sagacity to cultivate her strong points, and let her weak ones rest; and no critics could or would crush her aspirations. Whether she fished in muddy puddles or not, very few have souls open to the divine significance of nature or of life to a greater degree than the authoress of Jane Eyre. Heart, geniality, humanity, and genius, pervade the whole of her works. But there is a dark page to every book of glory. In our intimate friend there was an unmistakable, clear, distinct individuality: her works possess elements of indestructible excellence;—she mirrored characters somewhat elaborate (for the writer knew most of the Shirley ones personally) to the life, and after her own fashion, neither overdone nor underdone. She spared no class, but wrote for all classes. Let our writers develope the Jane Eyre mould in their creations; let their heroes and heroines be creatures of flesh and blood. Throw aside small motives -opaque and transparent duplicity; exclude sentimental twaddle, dare to be themselves and no one else; "keep the body under subjection;" and if not equally popular with our highly-esteemed friend, fine observations, fresh, healthy writing, a great charm, good results must follow. One thing she lacked-a better stamina of body; her nerves were gossamer-anything but enamelled with steel;-at any rate of a tenuity far too slender to bear the friction they had to sustain :-the sword wore the scabbard out prematurely. "Her sun went down, whilst it was yet noon." Inexorable is the law of the dust! After the panegryics showered upon this model of a woman,

it would be superogatory for us to add more: let her talented biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, tell the rest.

The humble writer of these hurried lines takes this opportunity of testifying his deep and lasting gratitude to Mr. Thackeray, the author of Vanity Fair, for the unremitting courtesy, urbanity, and assiduous attentions he paid to the late Miss Bronte whilst being lionised in London. A brief period before her decease, the gifted creature spoke to us more than once, and with more than her usual energy and emphasis on this theme (for her manner, though fervid, was quiet and self-possessed), of the many and deep obligations she lay under, not only to Mr. T., but many other bright constellations she had the honour of being introduced to whilst in town. Requiescat

in pace.

"If aught survive, I deem

It must be love and joy, for they immortal seem."

Mediocrity, insipidity, a lacking of character, is the great fault. Laborious trifles-mighty efforts to gain a purchase to lift a feather, may be seen everywhere. When we hear of reckless, improvident expenditure, no one looking to consequences in any department, it is hard for volatile spirits of warm temperament sometimes to suppress indignant feelings. Or, when one hears a great shout against innovation from the river-Jordan-stagnantpool association, it is difficult to suppress strong emotional bubblings. For, surely, is not every medicine an innovation? and he that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils. Time is the greatest innovator, and if

time, in course, order things for the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them for the better-what shall be the end?

Lavater says "There are but three classes of men; the retrograde, the stationary, and the progressive." The latter fall back on themselves; a class of men who feel themselves strong, frequently want the means of making essay of their strength. Shallow persons will be always content to swim in shallow waters; but vessels of deep draught every one knows (barring our bungling commissariat Crimean naval heroes) cannot float in waters that are shallow. We do not live in days when officials act as if they were paid to think; acting first, and thinking afterwards (the usual Irish fashion), is the order of the day. Hence the public learns that some costly ship just fit for launching is cut in two, in order that she may be elongated; of some other not long launched, that she is to be cut down; of another, that she is to be raised; of a fourth, that she is to be broken up because so badly planned as to be worthless: and yet all these stilted persons— whose lines have fallen in pleasant places, and think nepotism a venial thing-we are told have received liberal educations. If so, may we ask why, when anything important is to be done, they fail so miserably? Shakspeare's definition of man is reversed, viz., that he is an animal that thinks before and after. How can foreigners think of us as the first nation in the world, if when the war broke out, the Admiralty did not possess a screw steamer suitable to shallow waters? And yet we, more shallow, profess to look sharply after the political ante

cedents of those ex-members who obsequiously solicit our suffrages. He whom you seat upon your shoulder, will often try to get upon your head. How much longer is merit and efficiency to be sacrificed in public appointments to party and family influences, and to a blind adherence to routine? Truly, there are more poll parrots in the world, than are to be found in brass wire-work cages! bringing discredit upon the national character, and involving the country in grave disasters.

Give a hint to a man of sense, aud consider the thing done. War, like pleasure, is the rock which too many of our juveniles split upon: seduced by fashion and low. conformity, they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compass to direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which, pain and shame are the products. Nothing is so dark and demoralising as war; and yet human beings, glowing with the love of benevolence and virtue, sanction it vi et armis, not in extremis, but under the most frivolous pretences.

Follow nature, and not fashion. Weigh, young men, the present enjoyment of your pleasures, against the necessary consequences of them, and then let your own common sense determine your choice. We have our Porcupine Clubs as well as Algeria, and not less prickly; we have our hyenas and jackalls, to whom no cuirass can be a protector. Again we add-keep out of the mud and you cannot get soiled; flee temptations, the jungles and dens, the feeders of iniquity. How few are firmly resolved not to destroy their brethrens' faculties and constitution, in complaisance to those who have no regard for their

own. The pleasure of virtue, of charity, and of learning, is true and lasting pleasure; and, after all our good deeds, we must be contented with being moderately happy. It is enough for us to know that happiness is a perfume that one cannot shed over another, without a few drops falling on one's self. Obtain and reach after great ideas. What is needed to elevate the soul (says Emerson, who has the love of country twined round every fibre of his heart), is, not that a man should know all that has been thought and written in regard to the spiritual nature-not that a man should become an encyclopædia-but that the great ideas in which all discoveries terminate, which sum up all sciences, which the philosopher extracts from infinite details, may be comprehended and felt. It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity. A man of immense information may, through the want of large comprehensive ideas, be far inferior in intellect to a labourer, who, with little knowledge, has seized on great truths, and delivered them heartily, carefully avoiding extemporising. Naturalise art, said Montaigne, rather than artialise nature. I have known very learned men, who seemed to me very poor in intellect, because they had no grand thoughts. What avails it that a man has studied ever so minutely the history of Greece and Rome, if the great ideas of freedom, and beauty, and valour, and spiritual energy, have not been kindled by those records into living fires in his soul? "Truly, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Nature seldom requires as a plea for resuscitation, præternatural internal galvanic resurrections.