liable to the danger which the activity of the right hand might often expose it. The fancy, however, is more gratified by the Egyptian narrative, in our present use of that finger as a place for the marriage ring, viz. that it should have a connection with the heart, and become a symbol of the cordial attachment which it thus represents, and of the duties which it implies, when the husband trembles to think

Of the loss of her,

Who, like a jewel, has hung twenty years
About his neck, and never lost her lustre.

Henry VIII, scene 3.

Humble Stations.

In the Latin language, men who have chosen a situation remote from the bustle of life are called "umbratiles viri," men who delight in the shade. The figure of speech is elegant and expressive. They who live too near the sun are represented as men of fiery passions and strong sensual appetites, unknown to the cooler and more shady regions of the north. This tropical state of the body's humours and the mind's affections contributes little to ease, or to any state susceptible of happiness; and those storms or violent currents of air that are felt on the cloudcapt mountain, become gentle zephyrs in the vallies below.

Envy among Contemporaries, &c.

It is said, on high authority, that "a prophet has no honour in his own country." It may also be said that authors meet with a similar ill fate. Distance of place and distance of time put objects in a very different point of view. In Horace's age, writers required the lapse of a century to insure their fame. The great Lord Bacon was aware of this envy among his contemporaries, and in his last will has these remarkable words, my name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own country after some time is passed over!"

66

Modern Superstition and Ancient the same
in appearance.

How lively is this ancient description of modern saints. "The superstitious person utterly baffles the saying of Pythagoras, that we are then best, when we come near the gods;' for the superstitious man is then in his worst and most pitiful condition, when he approaches the temples and oratories of the gods. So that I cannot but wonder at those who charge atheism with impiety, and in the mean time acquit superstition. The ignorant devotee would fain be pleasant and gay,

but cannot. Whilst the whole town is filled with odours and incense, he, poor soul, is entertained with a sad mixture of hymns and sighs.-Plu tarch on Superstition.

Epitaphs.

It is a well-known truth, that death is a leveller of all; but that it does, in many cases, elevate characters, to which little living merit was ascribed, epitaphs in various instances proclaim. Should a person judge from reading these inscriptions in any church, or its environs, he would imagine that all virtue and goodness had expired with the lives of those whose epitaphs he had been perusing. He would return to the business or the pleasures of the world and his acquaintance, with little hopes of finding such very excellent characters, such as he had lately contemplated on the tombs. He would soon be at a loss to understand how so many noble characters should have left the world on a sudden, and not at least have bequeathed their examples among those who remained behind them. This wonder will remain, till he shall recol lect, that poets often write epitaphs, and rich men pay for them.

This French writer seems to sacrifice nature totally to national taste. His heroes are all Frenchmen; and witticism, according to Gallic goût, is not excluded from circumstances of the most grave and lugubrious situation. Polyeucte the Martyr, in the contemplation of his death, can speak very prettily, and exclaims on the pleasures of life on being about to quit the world:

Toute votre felicité,

Sujette à l'instabilité,

En moins de rien tombe par terre;
Et comme elle a l'éclat du verre,

Elle en a la fragilité.

Imitated,

Ah! what is thy felicity?

'Tis all unfix'd and all unsound;
And, in the twinkling of an eye,
It tumbles piece-meal on the ground.
Bright as the glass it is to view;
And is, alas! as brittle too.

Wit and Memory.

It is observable, that a great memory is sometimes unattended with any vast extent of intellect; and that such persons are more fond of quoting than of reasoning on any subject. Memory with

many an audience passes for native wit or understanding, which occasions such persons to reflect little, and keep their wits uncultivated.

This

matter seems attempted to be explained in our great moral poet-Pope :

Thus in the soul, while memory prevails,
The solid power of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
Memory's soft figures welt away.

That wits have short memories is a well-known proverb; and common experience will teach us, that memory by itself creates bold talkers and timid reasoners.

Female Education and Accomplishments.

We might be surprised in a common writer of novels to see this subject treated at once with such pregnant brevity, and so much perspicuity. "A well-informed mind," says the writer, "is the best security against the contagion of vice and folly. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking, and the temptations of the world without will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from the world within.