manded them to stand up on high for an ensample. We call him parricide who destroys the author of his existence; tell me, what shall we call him who casts forth to the dogs and birds of prey its most faithful propagator and most firm support? The parent gives us few days and sorrowful; the poet many and glorious: the one (supposing him discreet and kindly) best reproves our faults; the other best remunerates our virtues.

A page of poesy is a little matter: be it so; but of a truth I do tell thee, Cecil, it shall master full many a bold heart that the Spaniard cannot trouble; it shall win to it full many a proud and flighty one, that even chivalry and manly comeliness cannot touch. I may shake titles and dignities by the dozen from my breakfast board; but I may not save those upon whose heads I shake them from rottenness and oblivion. and their sovran dwell together, next year they and their beagle. Both have names, but names perishable. The keeper of my privy-seal is an earl: what then? the keeper of my poultry-yard is a Cæsar. In honest truth, a name given to a man is no better than a skin given to him; what

This year they

is not natively his own, falls off and comes to nothing.

I desire in future to hear no contempt of penmen, unless a depraved use of the pen shall have so cramped them as to incapacitate them for the sword and for the council-chamber. If Alexander was the great, what was Aristoteles who made him so? who taught him every art and science he knew, except three-those of drinking, of blaspheming, and of murdering his bosom-friends. Come along: I will bring thee back again nearer home. Thou mightest toss and tumble in thy bed many nights, and never eke out the substance of a stanza; but Edmund, if perchance I should call upon him for his counsel, would give me as wholesome and prudent as any of you. We should indemnify such men for the injustice we do unto them in not calling them about us, and for the mortification they must suffer in seeing their inferiors set before them. Edmund is grave and gentle he complains of Fortune, not of Elizabeth ; of courts, not of Cecil. I am resolved, so help me God, he shall have no further cause for his repining. Go, convey unto him those twelve silver

spoons, with the apostols on them, gloriously gilded; and deliver into his hand these twelve large golden pieces, sufficing for the yearly maintenance of another horse and groom; besides which, set open before him with due reverence this bible, wherein he may read the mercies of God towards those who waited in patience for his blessing; and this pair of cremisin silken hosen, which thou knowest I have worne only thirteen months, taking heed that the heelpiece be put into good and sufficient restauration, at my sole charges, by the Italian woman at Charing Cross.

(Imaginary Conversations: Queen Elizabeth and Cecil).

THE GRAND AND GLORIOUS PRIVILEGES OF LEARNING. O Andrew! although our learning raiseth up against us many enemies among the low, and more among the powerful, yet doth it invest us with grand and glorious privileges, and grant to us a largess of beatitude.

We enter our studies, and

enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another: we give no offence to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we

will, and leaving him as abruptly.

Diversity of

opinion raises no tumult in our presence: each interlocutor stands before us, speaks, or is silent, and we adjourn or decide the business at our leisure. Nothing is past which we desire to be present; and we enjoy by anticipation somewhat like the power which I imagine we shall possess hereafter of sailing on a wish from world to world.

(Ibid, Milton and Andrew Marvell).

BOOKS PERPETUAL RICHES.-The writings of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander. (Ibid.)

GENIUS CONSOLATOR.-I do not wonder you are attached to Tuscany. Many as have been your visits and adventures in other parts, you have rendered it pleasanter and more interesting than any; and indeed we can scarcely walk in any quarter from the gates of Florence, without the recollection of some witty or affecting story related by you. Every street, every farm, is peopled by your genius and the population cannot change with seasons or with ages, with factions or with

I

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incursions. Ghibellines or Guelphs will have been contested for only by the worms, long before the Decameron has ceased to be recited on our banks of blue lilies and under our arching vines. ther plague may come amidst us ; and something of a solace in so terrible a visitation would be found in your pages, by those to whom letters are a refuge and relief, (Pentameron, pp. 256—7).

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

[Born, 1786. Educated at home, and Oxford. "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," published 1822. His works consist of contributions to magazines and periodicals, which, collected, make fifteen volumes. Died, 1859.]

Books OF KNOWLEDGE AND BOOKS OF POWER. There is, first, the literature of knowledge; and, secondly, the literature of power. The function of

the first is to teach; the function of the second is -to move the first is a rudder; the second, an