SELF-HELP BEST.

Then said his lordship, "Well, God mend all!" "Nay, by God, Donald, we must help Him to mend it!" said the other. Rushworth.

A PREACHER'S DEFECTS.

The defects of a preacher are soon spied. Let a preacher be endued with ten virtues, and have but one fault, that one fault will eclipse and darken all his virtues and gifts, so evil is the world in these times. Dr Justus Jonas hath all the good qualities that a man may have; yet by reason that he only often hummeth and spitteth, therefore the people cannot bear with that good and honest man. Luther.

THE MORAL FEVER.

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family quarrels, pass with little notice. We read the scandal talk about it for a day,

and forget it.

But once in six or seven years our virtue becomes outrageous. We cannot suffer the laws of religion and decency to be violated.

We

must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that the English people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose offences have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him; if he has a profession, he is to be driven from it. He is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is supposed, sufficiently chastised. We reflect very complacently on our own severity, and compare with great pride the high standard of morals established in England with the Parisian laxity. At length our anger is satiated; our victim is ruined and heartbroken; and our virtue goes quietly to sleep for, seven years more. Macaulay.

TIME AND SPACE.

Nothing provokes me more than time and space, and yet nothing provokes me less, for I never think about them.

Charles Lamb.

B

BABBAGE'S CALCULATING MACHINE.

What a satire, by the way, is that machine on the mere mathematician! A Frankenstein monster, a thing without brains and without heart, too stupid to make a blunder; that turns out-formulæ like a corn-sheller, and never grows any wiser or better, though it grind a thousand bushels of them! O. W. Holmes.

MARRIAGE.

Marriage is a joy for a month, a sorrow for a life; a breaking of the back, a paying down of money, and a hearkening to a woman's tongue. Spanish Proverb.

MAN'S BUSINESS IN LIFE.

Men's proper business in this world falls mainly into three divisions :

First, To know themselves, and the existing state of the things they have to do with. Secondly, To be happy in themselves, and in the existing state of things.

Thirdly, To mend themselves and the existing state of things, as far as either are marred and mendable.

Ruskin.

THE POWER OF WINE.

Some men are like musical-glasses; to produce their finest tones you must keep them wet. Coleridge.

SHAKESPEARE'S MASTERPIECES.

Lear is the most tremendous effort of Shakespeare as a poet; Hamlet, as a philosopher or meditator; and Othello is the union of the two. There is something gigantic and unformed in the former two; but in the latter, everything assumes its due place and proportion, and the whole mature powers of his mind are displayed in admirable equilibrium. Coleridge.

Books.

It is books that teach us to refine our pleasures when young, and which, having so taught us, enable us to recall them with satisfaction when old. Leigh Hunt.

"A LITTLE LEARNING."

Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skilful hands; in unskilful, the most mischievous.

Pope.

Two GOOD SERVANTS.

"I'll go myself," and "I'll see to it," are two good servants on a farm.

THE LAW.

Danish Proverb.

Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but becaure 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to confute him. Selden.

THE HUMAN BODY.

Our body is a well-set clock, which keeps good time; but if it be too much or indiscreetly tampered with, the 'larum runs out before the hour. Bishop Hall.

MAN'S VANITY.

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake, though all the world see them to be in downright nonsense. Swift.

PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY.

Tooth-drawers are practical philosophers, that go upon a very rational hypothesis, not to cure, but to take away the part affected.

Steele.