A Lady Warrior.

Virgil, though it is admitted, proves himself inferior to Homer in splendour of thought and fertility; yet in judgment he is now and then, perhaps, the superior to the old Grecian bard. On the first view of the passage, Virgil seems more judiciously to have assigned swiftness of foot to Camilla, than Homer did to Achilles; but when we come to consider that running swiftly was one of the great prize exercises in their Olympic games, Homer stands not only exempt from any dispraise, but shews fine judgment in giving to his great hero the epithet of swift-footed-an accomplishment which would have conferred eminent praises on a candidate at the Olympic games.

A Wise Saying of an Ancient.

It is true that many sayings of the greater sages confer little credit on their morals, wit, or religion; as very many recorded by Diogenes, Laertius, and others, are cynical, obscene, impious, and dull-the latter quality being the most excusable. The following answer, however, of Chrysippus the stoic deserves to be written in letters of gold. When he was told by some persons that many spoke ill of him, he replied, "I will

live in such a manner, that no one shall believe them."

The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation. That away,

Men are but gilded or but painted clay.

Shakespeare, Richard II.

John Gay.

This elegant poet, in his celebrated fable of the "Hare and many Friends," seems not happy in his comparison of love and friendship :

Friendship, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.

This singular position cannot be reconciled with our experience of the two different qualities of these passions thus introduced, unless we suppose that John Gay meant a poet's friend-a patron; to one undoubtedly it would be the poet's interest to "stint his flame," and exclusively confine his attentions.

Picturesque.

Perhaps nothing will more clearly mark out the difference between the picturesque and the beautiful, than the present dress of men in England. When we view a picture of the most comely and graceful man in this dress, and compare another figure in a Turkish habiliment, no one can be

so little conversant with the pleasures of the eye, as not to prefer the foreign dress to the formality of the English one. We are indebted to the French for this unpicturesque form of our clothing; a people remarkably deficient in matters of taste, viz. poetry, music, painting, architecture, and sculpture.

Syllogisms.

How well has the author of Hudibras ridiculed these pedantic instruments to promote disputation, and which make it an endless contest and play of words:

This pagan heathenish invention
Is good for nothing but contention;
For as in sword and buckler fight
All blows do on the target light,
So when men argue, the greatest part
Of the contest falls on terms of art;
Until the fustian stuff be spent,

And then they fall to th' argument,

On Dress.

Canto 3.

The utility and propriety of attending to this article in life's economy are daily shewn by the disgust which slovenness produces, and the respect which neatness inspires. A lawyer and a poet have given us wise observations on this subject. My Lord Coke was, as Lloyd reports, remarked

for his delight in neat apparel, and well worn; and used to say, "that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor of purity to our souls."* Dr. Johnson, in his " Lives of the Poets," relates, that Shenstone used "to hold that fashion was no rule in dress, and that every man was to suit his appearance to his natural form." Well advises the poet on this head :

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Oliver Cromwell.

The following summing up of this usurper's character, by a sensible and impartial writer,t is a brief but comprehensive chronicle of the trials of ambition. "To finish Cromwell's character, I will add, that in the beginning of the Long Parliament he was a Presbyterian; after that he threw himself into the Independent party, and was even one of their leaders, and affected to be of the number of the Enthusiasts; but when he had accepted the Protectorship, he was neither Presbyterian, nor Independent, nor Republican, nor Enthusiast." So truly sings the poet,

'Tis a common proof,

That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upwards turns his face:
And when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks at the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend, &c.

Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar.

Acquaintance.

Men who are sufficiently employed in business or grave pursuits set little value upon acquaintance, but consider the possession of a friend with a greater degree of attachment, than persons who find a difficulty to employ the hour that is passing over their heads. To such trifling characters a friend appears a thing of too great magnitude to engage their fixed attentions. Friendship to such triflers is an object too vast for their intellectual vision to take in. They pursue the acquaintance of the day, and avoid any more permanent interest. Shew some men Stonehenge, and they will employ themselves in searching for pebbles that lie at their feet to such men friendship is terrific as a duty, while an acquaintance is easily. dismissed at the suggestion of selfishness.

He ought not to pretend to friendship's name,
Who reckons not himselfand friend the same.
Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours.