"There is nothing on earth so lowly but duty giveth it importance;

No station so degrading but it is ennobled by obedience."

Let it be first determined where obedience is really due, and then he that is faithful in obedience does really soar above even the best administrator of mere power. All human power, when rightly exercised, is a form of obedience to some recognized authority-to some principle which has been determined to be just-or towards some end which has been ascertained to be lawful.

LONDON IN SUMMER.

How wearisome is the crash, and jangling, and hurrying to and fro of London streets, in this June weather, when the sun is glaring and hot, and seems to order one away to the woods and to the running brooks! How very unpleasant the soot-flakes settling upon one's nose, and slowly commingling with the skin's moisture, forming into those particulars which taken in the aggregate constitute a dirty face! How afflicting are the Courts of Law-the thick wigs, and the obstreperousness of forensic eloquence! How dreadful the thought of being a Member of the House of Commons! How senseless and soporific does the system of popular legislation seem! Think of spending the whole of a fine day in

June listening to the wrangling of barristers, the stupidity and terror of witnesses on an election committee, and then having for recreation in the evening a discussion upon ballot, or some such interesting subject, in a company of five hundred people of more than average slovenliness and noisiness. Really it must be allowed that such of our M. P.'s as are capable of feeling do suffer for their country in no inconsiderable degree.

One can fancy the bustle of London and the burden of legislation as less unnatural and unendurable amid the sleet and slush of winter, but now the contemplation of them is very nauseous. At this very time the country is in its richest dress of green and gold, and pouring forth sweets from hedgerow, and wood, and field. The breeze that sweeps over bean blossoms and flowering clover is inexpressibly delicious, and woods and fields are full of song.

"Sometimes a-rising to the sky,
We hear the skylarks sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seem to fill the earth and air
With their sweet jargoning."

True the noonday is very hot, but then it is not a stew, as in London. One may get out of the sun's way into the quiet shade. And then how rich, and soft, and beautiful, the evenings! How mellow and pleasant the song of the thrush and the blackbird! In what a blaze of glory the sun

goes down, and how delicately beautiful the quiet radiance of the moon! and the brooks, how soothing is their voice even in the still night—

“A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune."

But in London there are the opera, and state balls, and morning concerts, and afternoon déjunés, and sundry other such delights. Well, well! Let them be-people will go on, reforming and altering everything but what they ought to reform and alter.

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

MR. HARTLEY COLERIDGE, in the essay introductory to his "Biographia Borealis," has some remarks upon the distinction between biography and history, which are highly interesting for the astuteness of observation which they display, and for the happiness of their expression. Taking history in its largest sense, and therefore including biography, he describes it in the following terms of condensed comprehensiveness:

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By history, we mean all such knowledge as rests upon testimony, as distinguished from science, which is grounded on demonstration, or on experiment." Mr. Hartley Coleridge, however, considers it more for his purpose to

consider biography as the antithesis of history, that is to divide the knowledge of the past, founded on testimony, into history and biography. The distinction he makes is, as he expresses it, not between an inclusive greater and an included less, as geography is distinguished from topography; but rather such as obtains between mechanical philosophy and chemistry, the former of which calculates the powers of bodies in mass, the latter analyses substances, and explains their operations by their composition.

He then proceeds to point out that the acts of individuals, or rather the narrations of such, when these acts are treated of only in relation to their bearing upon public interests, are to be taken as history, while, on the other hand, the private memoirs even of a public man are not history, but biography-" if the man be regarded as a state engine, no matter whether he be the steam engine that sets the whole in motion, or one of the most insignificant spindles -if his fortune be set forth, not for any personal interest to be taken therein, but merely as an instance, proof, cause, or consequence of the general destiny-such an account, though it admitted nothing, that did not originate from or tend towards a single person, ought not to be called a biography, but a history. Thus Robertson's Charles V.' is not a life of Charles V. but a history of Europe in the age of Charles V."

The marking out of distinctions of this kind is a nice exercise of the mind, and fits it for closer appreciations of truth. But we have yet to notice Mr. H. Coleridge's happiest instance of clear compression in this essay. The following brief sentence gives a very clear notion of what is strictly history-" What to one age is politics becomes history to all that succeed."

As to the benefit to be derived from the respective studies of history and biography, Mr. Coleridge states, that much has been said about the usefulness of history, meaning thereby the history of nations, and hardly too much can be said, if regard be had to the community and its rulers, for it makes the past a factor to buy up experience for the present, and enables the purged eye to "look into the seeds of time." But, he continues, if the consideration be private fireside moral usefulness, the benefits of historical reading, as a necessary department of education, or a profitable employment of leisure hours, have been very much exaggerated.

With all this I heartily agree; but I would have my readers to observe the distinction between saying that the benefits of historical reading have been exaggerated, and denying that any benefit has been derived. By people in general, history should be known, and biography should be studied.