gained in his hands by his powers of dissection. His love of beauty in everything enabled him to detect it with a certainty and an admiration which gave an extraordinary virtue and charm to his criticism.— Temple Bar.

DR. JOHNSON'S STYLE.

I OWN I like not Johnson's turgid style,
That gives an inch the importance of a mile;
Casts of manure a wagon-load around,
To raise a simple daisy from the ground;
Uplifts the club of Hercules-for what?
To crush a butterfly, or brain a gnat.
Creates a whirlwind, from the earth to draw
A goose's feather, or exalt a straw;

Sets wheels on wheels in motion-such a clatter,
To force up one poor nipperkin of water;
Bids ocean labour with tremendous roar,
To heave a cockle-shell upon the shore.
Alike in every theme his pompous art,
Heaven's awful thunder, or a rumbling cart!

Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot).

SIR WALTER SCOTT ON THE POET BURNS.

As to Burns, I may truly say, "Virgilium vidi tantum." I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinburgh, but had sense enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given worlds to know him; but I had very little acquaintance with the literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country—the two sets that he most frequented. Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word, otherwise I might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Ferguson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sat silent,-looked, and listened. The only thing I remember was remarkable in Burns' manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of Banbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on the one side, on the other his widow with a child in her arms. These lines were written beneath :

"Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain,
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,-
The child of misery baptized in tears."

Burns seemed much affected by this print, or rather the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were; and it chanced that but myself, nobody remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of the "Justice of the Peace." I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure.

His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly yet modestly. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should.—Lockhart's Life of Scott.

TRUE HEROISM.

LET us say, then, that true heroism must involve self-sacrifice. Those stories certainly involve it, whether ancient or modern, which the hearts, not of philosophers merely, or poets, but of the poorest and most ignorant, have accepted instinctively as the highest form of moral beauty-the highest form, and yet one possible to all. Grace Darling rowing out into the storm toward the wreck. The "drunken private of the Buffs," who, prisoner among the Chinese, and commanded to prostrate himself and kotoo, refused in the name of his country's honour" He would not bow to any Chinaman on earth;" and so was knocked on the head, and died surely a hero's death. Those soldiers of the Birkenhead, keeping their ranks to let the women and children escape, while they watched the sharks who in a few minutes would be tearing them limb from limb. Or, to go across the Atlantic-for there are heroes in the Far West-Mr. Bret Harte's Flynn of Virginia," on the Central Pacific Railway (the place is shown to travellers) who sacrificed his life for his married comrade :"Thar, in the drift,

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Back to the wall,
He held the timbers
Ready to fall.

Then in the darkness

I heard him call

'Run for your life, Jake!
Run for your wife's sake!
Don't wait for me.'

And that was all

Heard in the din

Heard of Tom Flynn,

Flynn of Virginia."

Or the engineer, again, on the Mississippi, who, when the steamer caught fire, held, as he had sworn he would, her bow against the bank till every soul save he got safe on shore :

"Through the hot black breath of the burning boat

Jim Bludso's voice was heard ;

And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And knew he would keep his word.
And sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,-
And Bludso's ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.
"He weren't no saint-but at Judgment
I'd run my chance with Jim
'Longside of some pious gentlemen

That wouldn't shake hands with him.
He'd seen his duty-a dead sure thing-
And went for it there and then :

And Christ is not going to be too hard
On a man that died for men."

To which gallant poem of Colonel John Hay's—and he has written many gallant and beautiful poems-I have but one demurrer : Jim Bludso did not merely do his duty, but more than his duty. He did a voluntary deed to which he was bound by no code or contract, civil or moral; just as he who introduced me to that poem won his Victoria Cross-as many a cross, Victoria and other, has been won-by volunteering for a deed to which he, too, was bound by no code or contract, military or moral. And it is of the essence of self-sacrifice, and therefore of heroism, that it should be voluntary: a work of supererogation, at least towards society and man-an act to which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but which is above though not against duty. Charles Kingsley.

MILTON AND SHAKSPEARE.

THE personal interest may in some cases oppress and circumscribe the imaginative faculty, as in the instance of Rousseau; but in general the strength and consistency of the imagination will be in proportion to the strength and depth of feeling; and it is rarely that a man even of lofty genius will be able to do more than carry his own feelings and character, or some prominent and ruling passion, into fictitious and uncommon situations. Milton has, by allusion, embodied a great part of his political and personal history in the chief characters and incidents of "Paradise Lost." He has, no doubt, wonderfully adapted and heightened them, but the elements are the same; you trace the bias and opinions of the man in the creations of the poet.

Shakspeare (almost alone) seems to have been a man of genius, raised above the definitions of genius. "Born universal heir to all

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humanity," he was as one in suffering all who suffered nothing" with a perfect sympathy with all things, yet alike indifferent to all: who did not tamper with nature, or warp her to his own purposes; who "knew all qualities with a learned spirit," instead of judging of them by his own predilections; and was rather a pipe for the Muse's finger to play what stop she pleased," than anxious to set up any character or pretensions of his own. His genius consisted in the faculty of transforming himself at will into whatever he chose. His originality was the power of seeing every object from the exact point of view in which others would see it. He was the Proteus of human intellect.-Hazlitt's Table Talk.

HORACE.

No writer of antiquity has taken a stronger hold upon the modern mind than Horace. The causes of this are manifold, but three may be especially noted: his broad human sympathies; his vigorous common sense; and his consummate mastery of expression. The mind must be either singularly barren or singularly cold to which Horace does not speak. The scholar, the statesman, the soldier, the man of the world, the town-bred man, the lover of the country, the thoughtful and the careless, he who reads much and he who reads little, all find in his pages more or less to amuse their fancy, to touch their feelings, to quicken their observation, to nerve their convictions, to put into happy phrase the deductions of their experience. His poetical sentiment is not pitched in too high a key for the imagination, but it is always so genuine that the most imaginative feel its charm. His wisdom is deeper than it seems, so simple, practical, and direct as it is in its application; and his moral teaching more spiritual and penetrating than is apparent in a superficial study. He does not fall into the common error of didactic writers, of laying upon life more than it will bear; but he insists that it shall at least bear the fruits of integrity, truth, honour, justice, self-denial, and brotherly charity. Over and above the mere literary charm of his works, too (and herein, perhaps, lies no small part of the secret of his popularity), the warm heart and thoroughly urbane nature of the man are felt instinctively by his readers, and draw them to him as to a friend.

Hence it is that we find he has been a manual with men the most diverse in their natures, cultures, and pursuits. Dante ranks him next after Homer. Montaigne, as might be expected, knows him by heart. Fénélon and Bossuet never weary of quoting him. La Fontaine polishes his own exquisite style upon his model; and Voltaire calls him "the best of preachers." Hooker escapes with him to the field to seek oblivion of a hard life, made harder by a shrewish spouse. Lord Chesterfield tells us, "When I talked my best, I quoted Horace." To Boileau and Wordsworth he is equally dear. Condorcet dies in his dungeon with Horace open by his side; and in Gibbon's militia days, "on every march," he says, "in every journey, Horace was always in my pocket, and often in my hand." And as it has been, so it is. In many a pocket, where this might be least expected, lies a

well-thumbed Horace; and in many a devout Christian heart, the maxims of the gentle, genial pagan find a place near the higher teaching of a greater Master.-Theodore Martin.

CARLYLE ON BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

THAT loose-flowing, careless-looking work of his is a picture by one of nature's own artists; the best possible resemblance of a reality; like the very image thereof in a clear mirror. Which indeed it was; let but the mirror be clear, this is the great point; the picture must and will be genuine. How the babbling Bozzy, inspired only by love, and the recognition and vision which love can lend, epitomises nightly the words of Wisdom, the deeds and aspects of Wisdom, and so, by little and little, unconsciously works together for us a whole Johnsoniad; a more free, perfect, sunlit, and speaking likeness than for many centuries had been drawn by man of man! Scarcely since the days of Homer has the feat been equalled; indeed, in many senses, this also is a kind of heroic poem. The fit Odyssey of our unheroic age was to be written-not sung; of a thinker, not of a fighter; and (for want of a Homer) by the first open soul that might offer.

As for the book itself, questionless the universal favour entertained for it is well merited. In worth as a book we have rated it beyond any other product of the eighteenth century. Which of us but re

members, as one of the sunny spots in his existence, the day when he opened these airy volumes, fascinating him by a true natural magic. It was as if the curtains of the past were drawn aside, and we looked mysteriously into a kindred country, where dwelt our fathers; inexpressibly dear to us, but which had seemed for ever hidden from our eyes.-Carlyle.

THE POET COWLEY.

THE mind of Cowley was beautiful, but a querulous tenderness in his nature breathes not only through his works, but influenced his habits and his views of human affairs. From his earliest days he tells us how the poetic affections had stamped themselves on his heart, "like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which with the tree will grow proportionately."-Disraeli's Calamities of Authors.

ROGER ASCHAM.

THE first English author who may be regarded as the founder of our PROSE style was Roger Ascham, the venerable parent of our native literature.-Disraeli's Calamities of Authors.

The works of Ascham, which are collected in a single volume, remain for the gratification of those who preserve a pure taste for the pristine simplicity of our ancient writers. His native English, that English which we have lost, but which we are ever delighted to recover, after a lapse of nearly three centuries, is still critical without pedan