William Hogarth was put apprentice to an engraver of pewter pots. Dr. Mountain, Bishop of Durham, was the son of a beggar. Lucian was the son of a statuary. Virgil a potter. Horace of a shopkeeper. Plautus a baker. Shakspeare the son of a woolstapler. Milton of a money-scrivener. Cowley son of a hatter. Mallet rose from poverty. Pope son of a merchant. Gay was apprentice to a silk mercer. Dr. Samuel Johnson was son of a bookseller at Litchfield. Akenside son of a butcher at Newcastle. Collins son of a hatter. Samuel Butler son of a farmer. Ben Jonson worked some time as a bricklayer. Robert Burns was a ploughman in Ayrshire. Thomas Chatterton son of a sexton at Radcliff church, Bristol. Thomas Gray was the son of a money-scrivener. Matthew Prior son of a joiner in London. Henry Kirke White son of a butcher at Nottingham. Bloomfield and Gifford were shoemakers. Addison, Goldsmith, Otway, and Canning were sons of clergymen. Porson son of a parish clerk. The mechanic arts especially have reason to be proud of the contributions which their pursuits, leading to a directness and practical exercise of the intellectual faculties, have added to the glorious constellation of talent which has illuminated the world."-New York Star. And although genius is of celestial origin, and gives us all our best attributes, yet its fate is a mournful commentary upon the transient light which beams from human glory. "Homer was a beggar, Plautus turned a mill, Terence was a slave, Boethius died in jail; Paul Borghese had fourteen different trades, and yet starved with them all; Tasso was often distressed for 5s.; Bentevoglio was refused admittance into a hospital he had himself erected; Cervantes died of hunger; Camoens, the celebrated writer of The Lusiad, ended his days in an almshouse; and Vaugelas left his body to the surgeons to pay his debts as far as it would go. In our own country, Bacon lived a life of meanness and distress; Sir Walter Raleigh died on the scaffold; Spenser, the charming Spenser, died forsaken and in want; the death of Collins came through neglect, first causing mental derangement: "Each lonely scene shall thee restore, For thee the tear be duly shed; Belov'd till life can charm no more, "Milton sold his copyright of Paradise Lost for £15, at three payments, and finished his life in obscurity; Dryden lived in poverty and died in distress; Otway died prematurely and through hunger; Lee died in the streets; Steele lived a life of perfect warfare with bailiffs; Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield was sold for a trifle, to save him from the gripe of the law; Fielding lies in the burying-ground of the English factory at Lisbon, without a stone to mark the spot; Savage died in prison at Bristol, where he was confined for a debt of £8; Butler lived in penury, and died poor; Chatterton, the child of genius and misfortune, destroyed himself!" All men bow to the acknowledged truth and beauty of wisdom, but follow the lurking impulses of passion. Even these plain and beautiful precepts, however loved and admired, are practically unheeded and neglected. The laws of God, and the dictates of common prudence, are alike forgotten, and man listlessly floats down upon the stream of time, heedless, thoughtless, and self-willed. EXTRACTS FROM BULWER. "Never chase a lie, for, if you keep quiet, truth will eventually overtake and destroy it. "Never trust a person who solicits your confidence, for, in all probability, he will betray you. "If you want to make a fool of a man, first see if you can easily flatter him, and if you can succeed, your purpose is half gained. "Secure the approbation of the aged, and you will enjoy the confidence, if not the love, of the young. "Our affections and our pleasures resemble those fabulous trees described by St. Oderie; the fruits which they bring forth are no sooner ripened into maturity than they are transformed into birds and fly away. "By examining the tongue of the patient, physicians find out the disease of the body, and philosophers the disease of the mind. "There is nothing that a vicious man will not do to appear virtuous! He loves nothing so well as his mask. I have known persons who in four weeks have not changed shirts; but who have nevertheless put on a clean collar daily, that they may appear clean. "A man of an open character naturally discovers his faults more than virtues the former are not easily forgiven, because the latter are not seen. "Cato the elder was wont to say that 'the Romans were like sheep-a man were better to drive a flock of them, than one of them.' "Those who are easily flattered, are always easily cheated.” The quotations from WATTS and others, thrown into this work, contain the pith and strength of refined and vigorous intellects upon the points noticed; and are invoked as well for this as for the purpose of showing that the object here is to point out the wayside signals of human imperfection. The depravities, eccentricities, and follies of man are not held up for scorn, but for pity; not for ridicule, but for profitable reflection; not in a spirit of criticism and fault-finding, but as it were to thrust the mirror of man's inmost soul before his reluctant gaze, and force him to pause and ponder on his dark deformities; to expose the hidden elements of self-destruction that swell his vile and wicked heart; to warn him how his judgment and conscience are beguiled and misled by his beastly passions and brutal propensities; how he vainly imagines that what he sees and thinks was never known before; how he encourages vanity, self-will, jealousy, suspicion, hatred, revenge, and infidelity; how he would doom himself and others down in ignorance, lust, and superstition; how he wilfully and blindly refuses to admire and adore the glorious transports and the rapturous inspirations poured in upon him from every star in the heavens, and every fragrant grove and sparkling rill in this golden Paradise of God. And thus the wayward contrarieties of man fill up his cup with ills and sorrow of his own creation; night and rest are profaned by debauchery; diseased and heated appetite is glutted; health, honor, and self-respect defied; hard-earned means are squandered; debts unnecessarily and fraudulently incurred; brutal impulses wantonly indulged; and voluntary infamy and ruin are madly rushed on. Blind man, mysterious and ungovernable! conscious of ill, and still led blindly on to do it; thy better self, the child of love and truth; thy wicked heart, on mischief firmly bent; no harmony of thought and action; fierce and discordant attributes, baffling and frustrating analogy, reason, duty, and selfprotection, and knowing nothing beyond invincible, blind, degenerate choice; looming and weaving for thy inevitable and fatal destiny for life and death, The warp and woof of human woe! CHAPTER V. WOMAN. Extract from Watts-Her creation-Its design-Man made alone-Then woman-Was created a wife-Marriage necessary for her-Secondary with man-He loves parade and fame-She, retirement-He strongShe weak Yet he seeks home and marriage-Affinities-MotherWife-Children-Disregards opposition to her marriage-In power of man-Her patience-Suffering-Sorrows-Faults-These are the best— Those not so-Women of King Henry's age-Emelia Osborn-Thackary -Their employments-Poor and rich-Poverty-Labor-Grades of capacity-Self-government—Quakers' charity—Virtue—Benevolence—Woman's sphere-Lazy men-Extracts-Comparisons-Their separate destiny Dana's lecture on woman, on Shakspeare-Lucretia Mott in reply to Dana's do. Women holding offices, &c.—The power and sagacity of a wife in discovering and circumventing an intrigue to prevent her husband's re-election to an office-Marriage essential for this-Wife holds control of husband and children-Husbands lean on home-Fault of wife generally if he deserts it-Exceptions-Her power over his passions and love-Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd. "THE expanding rose just bursting into beauty has an irresistible bewitchingness;-the blooming bride led triumphantly to the hymeneal altar awakens admiration and interest, and the blush of her cheek fills with delight;—but the charm of maternity is more sublime than these. Heaven has imprinted on the mother's face something beyond this world, something which claims kindred with the skies the angelic smile, the tender look, the waking, watchful eye which keeps its fond vigil over her slumbering babe. "These are objects which neither the pencil nor the chisel can touch, which poetry fails to exalt, which the most eloquent tongue in vain would eulogize, and on which all description becomes ineffective. In the heart of men lies this lovely picture; in his sympathies; it reigns in his affections; his eyes look round in vain for such another object on the earth. "Maternity, ecstatic sound! so twined round our heart that it must cease to throb ere we forget it! 'Tis our first love; 'tis part of our religion. Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle, that our infant eyes and arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood; we almost worship it in old age. He who can enter an apartment, and behold the tender babe feeding on its mother's beauty-nourished by the tide of life which flows through her generous veins-without a panting bosom and grateful eye, is no man, but a monster. He who can approach the cradle of sleeping innocence without thinking that of such is the kingdom of Heaven,' or view the fond parent hang over its beauties, and half retain her breath, lest she should break its slumbers, with a veneration not beyond all common feeling, is to be avoided in every intercourse in life, and is fit only for the shadow of darkness and the solitude of the desert; though a lone being, far be such feelings from me."-WATTS. In the 27th verse, 1st chapter of Genesis, it is written :— "So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." And after this, in the 31st verse of the same chapter, it is recorded: "And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." This is the general historical statement of the creation of man. In the second chapter, there is given a more detailed and chronological account of it.. It proceeds as follows: The heavens and the earth were finished with the sixth day, and God rested on the seventh day. It then proceeds to state, that the herbs had been made, but had not begun to grow; for there had been no rain, and "there was not a man to till the ground." "And A mist then went up, which watered the ground. the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." "And a garden was planted." And the man And out of the ground every tree did grow. was put into the garden, to dress and keep it; and he was told what fruit he might, and should not eat. After this, every beast and fowl was formed, and brought to him; and he named them all. Which must have taken several years; for Adam was but a mere man; he was not inspired; and he could not think of names, and call them over, any faster than we can. But for Adam there was "not found an help meet for him." |