dispense with diligence, from an idea that the pupil possesses genius sufficient to compensate for the want of it. All men are liable to mistake in deciding on genius at a very early age; but parents more than all, from their natural partiality. On no account, therefore, let them dispense with close application. If the pupil has genius, this will improve and adorn it; if he has not, it is confessedly requisite to supply the defect. Those prodigies of genius, which require not instruction, are rare phenomena: we read, and we hear of such; but few of us have seen and known such.

What is genius worth without knowledge? But is a man ever born without knowledge? It is true, that one man is born with a better capacity than another, for the reception and retention of ideas; but still the mind must operate in collecting, arranging, and discriminating those ideas, which it receives with facility. And I believe the mind of a genius. is often very laboriously at work, when, to the common observer, it appears to be quite inactive.

I most anxiously wish, that a due attention may be paid to my exhortations, when I recommend great and exemplary diligence. All that is excellent in learning depends upon it. And how can the time of a boy or a young man be better employed? It cannot be more pleasantly; for I am sure, that industry, by presenting a constant succession of various objects, and by precluding the listlessness of inaction, renders life, at all stages of it, agreeable, and particularly so in the restless season of youth.

It cannot be more innocently; for learning has a connexion with virtue; and he, whose time is fully engaged, will escape many vices and much misery. It cannot be more usefully; for he, who furnishes his mind with ideas, and strengthens his faculties, is preparing himself to become a valuable member of society, whatever place in it he may obtain; and he is likely to obtain an exalted place.

LESSON LXV.

Story of Matilda.-GOLDSMITH.

OUR happiness is in the power of One, who can bring it about in a thousand unforeseen ways, that mock our foresight. If example be necessary to prove this, I'll give you

a story, told us by a grave, though sometimes a romancing

historian.

"Matilda was married, very young, to a Neapolitan nobleman of the first quality, and found herself a widow and a mother at the age of fifteen. As she stood one day caressing her infant son in the open window of an apartment which hung over the river Volturnus, the child, with a sudden spring, leaped from her arms into the flood below, and disappeared in a moment.

"The mother, struck with instant surprise, and making an effort to save him, plunged in after; but, far from being able to assist the infant, she herself, with great difficulty, escaped to the opposite shore, just when some French soldiers were plundering the country on that side, who immediately made her their prisoner.

"As the war was then carried on between the French and Italians with the utmost inhumanity, they were going at once to perpetrate those two extremes suggested by appetite and cruelty. This base resolution, however, was opposed by a young officer, who, though their retreat required the utmost expedition, placed her behind him, and brought her in safety to his native city.

"Her beauty at first caught his eye, her merit, soon after, his heart. They were married: he rose to the highest posts: they lived long together, and were happy. But the felicity of a soldier can never be called permanent. After an interval of several years, the troops which he commanded having met with a repulse, he was obliged to take shelter in the city where he had lived with his wife. Here they suffered a siege, and the city at length was taken.

"Few histories can produce more various instances of cruelty, than those which the French and Italians, at that time, exercised upon each other. It was resolved by the victors, upon this occasion, to put all the French prisoners to death; but particularly the husband of the unfortunate Matilda, as he was principally instrumental in protracting the siege. Their determinations were, in general, executed almost as soon as resolved upon.

"The captive soldier was led forth, and the executioner with his sword stood ready, while the spectators in gloomy silence awaited the fatal blow, which was only suspended till the general, who presided as judge, should give the signal. It was in this interval of anguish and expectation, that Matilda came to take her last farewell of her husband and

deliverer, deploring her wretched situation, and the cruelty of fate, that had saved her from perishing by a premature death in the river Volturnus, to be the spectator of still greater calamities.

"The general, who was a young man, was struck with surprise at her beauty, and pity at her distress; but with still stronger emotions, when he heard her mention her former dangers. He was her son-the infant, for whom she had encountered so much danger. He acknowledged her at once as his mother, and fell at her feet. The rest may be easily supposed: the captive was set free, and all the happiness that love, friendship, and duty, could confer on each, was enjoyed."

LESSON LXVI.

The Man of Ross.-POPE.

BUT all our praises why should lords engross? ng Los de
Rise, honest muse! and sing the man of Ross;
Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns tossed,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost,

But clear and artless, pouring through the plain
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.

Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
"The man of Ross," each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The man of Ross divides the weekly bread:
He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state,
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate:
Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blessed,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.

Is any sick? The man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives.
Is there a variance? Enter but his door,
Balked are the courts, and contest is no more.

Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now a useless race.
Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!
O say, what sums that generous hand supply?
What mines to swell that boundless charity?
Of debts, and taxes, wife, and children clear,
This man possessed five hundred pounds a year.
Blush, grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your blaze!
Ye little stars, hide your diminished rays!

And what! no monument, inscription, stone!
His race, his form, his name, almost unknown!-
Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name.
Go search it there, where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor, makes all the history;
Enough, that virtue filled the space between;
Proved by the ends of being to have been.

LESSON LXVII.

Early Recollections.-NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

Ir is delightful to fling a glance back to our early years, and recall our boyish actions, glittering with the light of hope and the sanguine expectations of incipient being. But the remembrance of our sensations when we were full of elasti city, when life was new, and every sense and relish keen, when the eye saw nothing but a world of beauty and glory around, every object glittering in golden resplendency-is the most agreeable thing of all.

The recollection of boyish actions gives small gratification to persons of mature years, except for what may, perchance, be associated with them. But youthful sensations, experienced when the edge of enjoyment was most keen, and the senses exquisitely susceptible, furnish delightful recollections, that cling around some of us, in the last stage of life, like the principle of being itself. How do we recollect the exquisite taste of a particular fruit or dish to have been then! how delicious a cool draught from the running stream! A landscape, a particular tree, a field, how much better defined and delightfully coloured then, than they ever appeared afterwards!

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There was a single tree opposite the door of my father's house: I remeniber even now, how every limb branched off, and that I thought no tree could be finer or larger. I loved its shade; I played under it for years; but when I visited it, after my first absence for a few months from home, though I recognised it with intense interest, it appeared lessened in size; it was an object I loved, but as a tree it no longer attracted wonder at its dimensions. During my absence I had travelled in a forest of much larger trees, and the pleasure and well-defined image in my mind's eye, which I owed to the singleness of this object, I never again experienced in observing another.

Can I ever forget the sunny side of the wood, where I used to linger away my hol'ydays among the falling leaves of the trees in autumn! I can recall the very smell of the sere foliage to recollection; and the sound of the dashing water is even now in my ear. The rustling of the boughs, the sparkling of the stream, the gnarled trunks of the old oaks around, long since levelled by the axe, left impressions only to be obliterated by death. The pleasure I then felt was undefinable; but I was satisfied to enjoy without caring whence my enjoyment arose.

The old church-yard and its yew-trees, where I sacrilegiously enjoyed my pastimes among the dead, and the ivied tower, the belfry of which I frequently ascended, and wondered at the skill, which could form such ponderous masses as the bells, and lift them so high,-these were objects that, on Sundays particularly, often filled my mind, upon viewing them, with a sensation that cannot be put into language.

It was not joy, but a soothing, tranquil delight, that made me forget, for an instant, that I had any desire in the world unsatisfied. I have often thought since, that this state of mind must have approached pretty closely to happiness. As we passed the church-way path to the old Gothic porch on Sundays, I used to spell the inscriptions on the tombs, and wonder at the length of a life that exceeded sixty or seventy years; for days then passed slower than weeks pass

now.

I visited, the other day, the school-room where I had been once the drudge of a system of learning, the end of which I could not understand, and where, as was then the fashion, every method taken seemed intended to disgust the scholar with those studies he should be taught to love. I saw my name cut in the desk; I looked again on my old