men. The besieged passed an anxious night, looking for a renewal of the attack. But when day broke the enemy were no more to be seen. They had retired, leaving to the English several guns and a large quantity of ammunition.

MACAULAY, "Lord Clive."

THE OBJECT OF GENERAL EDUCATION.

We may take it as a fundamental principle, that the object of general education is not so much to impart information as to call into exercise, and develop, and discipline faculties; not so much to store with knowledge as to awaken the desire, and supply the power of acquiring knowledge; not to afford special training for particular pursuits in life, but to furnish general culture; not to train a man for his future calling, but to make him fit for any calling, by giving him the power of taking up any subject that presents itself, comprehending its principles, and mastering its details-by making his intellect broad, clear, vigorous, and active-by imparting to him a sound and accurate judgment, able to decide aright the various questions which occur in business or ordinary life :-in short, by educing and training those powers and habits of mind which enable a man in his social and business capacity to deal successfully with his fellow-men, and to exert a wholesome and useful influence on all within his sphere of action.

Rev. Dr. JOSHUA JONES, "Classical Studies."

THE BATTLE OF PLASSEY.

I.

The day broke, the day which was to decide the fate of India. At sunrise the army of the Nabob, pouring through many openings of the camp, began to move towards the grove where the English lay. Forty thousand infantry, armed with firelocks, pikes, swords, bows and

arrows, covered the plain. They were accompanied by fifty pieces of ordnance of the largest size, each tugged by a long team of white oxen, and each pushed on from behind by an elephant. Some smaller guns, under the direction of a few French auxiliaries, were perhaps more formidable. The cavalry were fifteen thousand, drawn, not from the effeminate population of Bengal, but from the bolder race which inhabits the northern provinces; and the practised eye of Clive could perceive that both the men and the horses were more powerful than those in the Carnatic. The force which he had to oppose to this great multitude consisted of only three thousand men. But of these nearly a thousand were English; and all were led by English officers, and trained in the English discipline. Conspicuous in the ranks of the little army were the men of the Thirty-ninth Regiment, which still bears on its colours, amidst many honourable additions won under Wellington in Spain and Gascony, the name of Plassey, and the proud motto, Primus in Indis.

II.

The battle commenced with a cannonade in which the artillery of the Nabob did scarcely any execution, while the few field-pieces of the English produced great effect. Several of the most distinguished officers in Surajah Dowlah's service fell. Disorder began to spread through his ranks. His own terror increased every moment. One of the conspirators urged on him the expediency of retreating. The insidious advice, agreeing as it did with what his own terror suggested, was readily received. He ordered his army to fall back, and this order decided his fate. Clive snatched the moment, and ordered his troops to advance. The confused and dispirited multitude gave way before the onset of disciplined valour. No mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more completely routed. The little band of Frenchmen, who alone ventured to confront the English, were swept down the stream of fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah

Dowlah were dispersed, never to re-assemble. Only five hundred of the vanquished were slain. But their camp, their guns, their baggage, innumerable waggons, innu. merable cattle, remained in the power of the conquerors. With the loss of twenty-two soldiers killed and fifty wounded, Clive had scattered an army of near sixty thousand men, and subdued an empire larger and more populous than Great Britain.

MACAULAY, "Lord Clive."

TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS.

The High Court of Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed down from the days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the Holy City of Benares, and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude.

The

The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame, Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter King-at-arms. The judges in their vestments of state attended to give advice on points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three-fourths of the Upper House as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. The junior Baron present led the way, George Elliott, Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memorable defence of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of

Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the King. Last of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The grey old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or the emulation of an orator.

MACAULAY, "Essay on Warren Hastings."

JOSIAH WEDGWOOD.

Here is a man, who, beginning as it were from zero, and unaided by the national or royal gifts which were found necessary to uphold the glories of Sèvres, of Chelsea, and of Dresden, produced works truer, perhaps, to the inexorable laws of art, than the fine fabrics that proceeded from those establishments, and scarcely less attractive to the public taste. Here is a man, who found his business cooped up within a narrow valley by the want of even tolerable communications, and who, while he devoted his mind to the lifting that business from mean. ness, ugliness, and weakness, to the highest excellence of material and form, had surplus energy enough to take a leading part in great engineering works like the Grand Trunk Canal, from the Mersey to the Trent; which made the raw material of his industry abundant and cheap, which supplied a vent for the manufactured article, and opened for it materially a way to the outer world.

Speech by Mr. GLADSTONE.

ELOQUENCE OF THE HEART.

In relinquishing power I shall leave a name, severely censured, I fear, by many, who, on public grounds, deeply regret the severance of party ties-deeply regret the severance, not from interest or personal motives, but from the firm conviction that fidelity to party engagements, the existence and maintenance of a great party, consti

I shall

tutes a powerful instrument of government. surrender power, censured by others, who, from no interested motives, adhere to the principle of protection, considering the maintenance of it to be essential to the welfare and interest of the country.

I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist, who, for less honourable motives, clamours for protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit; but it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good-will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened with the sense of injustice.

Sir ROBERT PEEL, "Speech on Resigning Office on the
Corn Law Question."

GRACE IS EASE.

Grace is either the beauty of motion, or the beauty of posture. Graceful motion is motion without difficulty or embarrassment; or that which, from experience, we know to be connected with ingenuous modesty, a desire to increase the happiness of others, or any beautiful moral feeling. A person walks up a long room, observed by a great number of individuals, and pays his respects as a gentleman ought to do: why is he graceful? Because every movement of his body inspires you with some pleasant feeling; he has the free and unembarrassed use of his limbs, his motions do not indicate forward boldness, or irrational timidity: the outward signs perpetually indicate agreeable qualities. The same explanation applies to grace of posture and attitude; that is a graceful attitude which indicates an absence of restraint; and facility, which is the sign of agreeable qualities of mind: apart from such indications, one attitude I should conceive to be quite as graceful as another.

SYDNEY SMITH, "Moral Philosophy."