self so much to the glazier's wife, that she regarded him as her own son, and watched, with maternal fondness and delight, the first dawnings of his infant mind. The little orphan, who was named John le Rond d'Alembert, early manifested signs of those extraordinary powers of intellect by which he was afterwards distinguished. When he was in his tenth year, his schoolmaster frankly declared that he had nothing further to teach him. He was then placed at the college of Mazerin, where he made such rapid progress, that, at the age of thirteen, he had finished the usual courses of study pursued there, and had particularly distinguished himself in philosophy and the mathematics. After he left the college of Mazerin he returned to the house of his kind foster-mother, where he enjoyed a quiet retreat, and prosecuted his studies without interruption. He followed the advice of his friends, in directing his attention, first, to the law, in which he took his degrees, and afterwards to medicine; but he soon deserted law and physic to return to his favourite mathematics.

In 1762 he was invited by the Empress of Russia to undertake the education of her son, the Grand Duke, with the offer of a salary of one hundred thousand livres, and other privileges; but this honourable and lucrative office he refused, and though urged by a second letter under the Empress's own hand, his attachment to his country and his friends, and his preference to literary leisure, induced him still to decline the honour offered him. For his kind nurse he always retained the affectionate sensibility of a grateful son; he remained in her house more than thirty years, and

did not leave it until after a long illness, when his physician represented to him the necessity of removing to a more airy and commodious lodging. His mother, who had cruelly exposed him as a foundling, was a woman of fortune and consequence. When she heard of the fame and talents of D'Alembert, she introduced herself to him, and informed him that he was her son; but he replied that he would have no mother but the glazier's wife.

OPINIONS.

From such facts the nature and the strength of the love of knowledge appears; let us next consider the opinions of philosophy.

BISHOP HALL.

“What an heaven lives a scholar in, that at once, in one close room, can daily converse with all the glorious martyrs and fathers; that can single out, at pleasure, either sententious Tertullian, or grave Cyprian, or resolute Hierome, or flowing Chrysostome, or divine Ambrose, or devout Bernard, or (who alone is all these) heavenly Augustine, and talk with them, and hear their wise and holy counsels, verdicts, resolutions: yea, to rise higher, with courtly Esay, with learned Paul, with all their fellow-prophets, apostles; yea more, like another Moses, with God himself, in them both! Let the world contemn us: while we have these delights we cannot envy them; we cannot wish ourselves other than we are. Besides, the way all other contentments is troublesome: the only recompense is in the end. To delve in the mines, to scorch in the fire for the getting, for the fining of

to

gold, is a slavish toil: the comfort is in the wedge to the owner, not the labourers: where our very search of knowledge is delightsome, study itself is our life, from which we would not be barred for a world. How much sweeter, then, is the fruit of study, the consciousness of knowledge! In comparison whereof, the soul that hath once tasted it easily contemns all human comforts. Go now, ye worldlings, and insult over our paleness, our neediness, our neglect; ye could not be so jocund if ye were not ignorant; if you did not want knowledge, you could not overlook him that hath it for me, I am so far from emulating you, that I profess I had as lieve be a brute beast, as an ignorant rich man.”

SOUTH.

Con

"The pleasures of speculation have been sometimes so great, so intense, and so engrossing all the powers of the soul, that there has been no room left for any other pleasure. It has so called together all the spirits to that one work, that there has been no supply to carry on the inferior operations of nature. templation feels no hunger, nor is sensible of any thirst but of that after knowledge. How frequent and exalted a pleasure did David find from his meditation in the divine call! All the day long it was the theme of his thoughts: the affairs of state, the government of his kingdom, might indeed employ, but it was this only that refreshed his mind. How short of this are the delights of the epicure! How vastly disproportionate are the pleasures of the eating and of the thinking man! Indeed as different as the silence of

Archimedes in the study of a problem, and the still

ness of a sow at her wash."

MILTON.

"How charming is divine philosophy!

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose;
But musical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns."-Comus.

BOYLE.

"The things," says Boyle, "for which I hold life valuable, are the satisfaction that accrues from the improvement of knowledge and the exercise of piety."

BACON.

"As the eye rejoices to receive the light, the ear to hear sweet music, so the mind, which is the man, rejoices to discover the secret works, the varieties and beauties of nature. The discovery of the different properties of creatures, and the imposition of names, was the occupation and pleasure of Adam in Paradise. The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying it, is the sovereign good of our nature.

"The pleasure and delight of knowledge far surpasseth all other in nature. We see in all other pleasures there is a satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth; which showeth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasure: and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy. But of knowledge there is

no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable; and therefore appeareth to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or accident. Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy and contentment in the mind of man."

REASON.

"There is a natural alliance between the understanding and truth, which nothing can thoroughly dissolve, though prejudice, bigotry, and ignorance may weaken and interrupt it."-Hulsean Essay for 1825, p. 70. And a similar passage, in the Rev. C. W. Le Bas' Discourses, preached at St. Mary's, Cambridge: "The understanding is as naturally fitted to receive and enjoy truth, as the eye to discern colours." Jortin's Sermons.

The mind is always pleased when it supposes that the truth is presented to it. This is in accordance with the many pleasures which we are capable of enjoying; for pleasure seems always to be associated with acts which contribute to our preservation and comfort. What so refreshing as water to all animated? Light, the necessary element of vision, is pleasant to the eye; food, the staple necessary of life, is pleasant to the body; air, the necessary element of breathing, is refreshing to the frame. Sleep is the very balm of life to all creatures under the sun; motion is, from infancy to feeblest age, the most recreating of things, save rest after motion. Every necessary instinct for preserving or continuing our existence, hath in it a pleasure when indulged in moderation; and the pain which attends excess, is the