communication in words. Rapid and copious language is well known, to all minds so trained to silence and meditation, not to be so competent a vehicle for deep thoughts as sympathy and communion, carried on by few words, yet deeply felt and understood. The lover can convey his passion more forcibly by the eloquence of the eye, the expression of a look, or by the power of a smile, than by language.

In

2. There is nothing we delight in more than this Pythagorean silence; this ecstatic musing of the mind. Cicero said, there is not only an art, but an eloquence in silence. We find language only an impediment to thought. There is an effort required in speaking which fatally disenchants the soul, and brings it down to the realms of reality. using language we care not so much about the idea, as the mode in which we express it. But the same idea unexpressed in the mind is there existing in all the nakedness and simplicity of its nature, pure and beautiful as from the Creator's hands. Words may embellish the idea in an artificial dress, but what we gain in show we lose in simpleness and symmetry.

With this preference for silence, and perpetual longing for solitude, and the solitary places, where we love to court fair wisdom, our detestation of great talkers can surprise no one: and no one of a discriminating turn can wonder at the bitterness we may express against this tribe of noxious animals. It will be found true, as Raleigh says, "that speaking much is a sign of vanity; he that is lavish of words is a niggard in deeds." It will be found, too, that empty vessels emit the greatest sound. Great talkers are but tinkling cymbals and pieces of sounding brass. "It is," observes Pope, "with narrow-souled people, as with

narrow-necked bottles, the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out."

3. It is the fool who speaks in the face of the sun; i. e. makes known his thoughts and feelings to all the world. As of a woman's modesty, which, it is said, she cannot safely unmask before the moon, so is it with a man's mind; he cannot prudently or wisely disclose it even to the most intimate friend, much less to all mankind. There are secret thoughts in every breast, to know which is no man's business; and to proclaim them publicly is a certain proof of a loquacious, superficial mind, and of the want of depth of character. He who cannot bridle the tongue, and act discreetly, but is ever declaring to the world the emotions he feels, and everything that happens to him, however trifling, is sure to bring upon himself contempt and derision; as such conduct only more effectually exposes to view the meanness of his soul, and littleness of his character.

4. It is remarkable that great men have, in general, been silent and taciturn in company. "In conversation," says the author of the Literary Character," the sublime Dante was taciturn or satirical; Butler sullen or caustic; Gray and Alfieri seldom talked or smiled; Descartes, whose habits had formed him for solitude and meditation, was silent; Rousseau was remarkably trite in conversation, not an idea, not a word of fancy or eloquence warmed him ; Addison and Molière in society were only observers; and Dryden has very honestly told us, 'My conversation is slow and dull, my humour saturnine and reserved.' Pope is said to have said only one witty thing in his whole life. Sir Isaac Newton was silent and abstracted in company, and seemed as if he were saying his prayers. A Frenchman mentions the silence of the celebrated Franklin, who was

a shrewd observer, and not much given to abstraction. Chaucer and Fontaine were more facetious in their tales than in their conversation. Tasso's conversation was not agreeable," &c.

So much for the effect of thought and study on the organs of speech. Their course of life was truly Pythagorean; and, as might be expected, their wisdom and learning were in the ratio of their silence and reserve. If they had been ordinary men, instead of being some of the brightest characters of earth, it may have been safely predicated of them, that they would not have earned the above remarkable distinction.

THE DESIRE OF FAME.

Symbol III.-Cerebrum ne edito.

Eat not the brain.

1. PERHAPS on reflection there is nothing in the life of man more singular than the desire of fame after death. If it be a pleasure to have our names in the mouths of men, it is a pleasure only to be enjoyed in prospect; and this prospective pleasure is the wonder, the marvel. It is curious also, that those men who are buoyed up by this hope of immortality, are not always the most eager to desire celebrity while alive. On the contrary, temporary applause is often despised, as a worthless shadow in comparison with that real, substantial, matured praise, expected for their works in future times. It is not for the living acclamation they labour day and night, but for the posthumous fame. They consume not the brain for what can now be heard and enjoyed-the approbation of menbut for that which death shall veil from their eyes,—the smiles of unborn generations.

2. If we could enumerate the hosts of men who have aspired to fame, who have laboured, destroyed their health, and undermined their happiness for fame, and then compare with that terrible phalanx, the small band who have

been snatched from the waters of oblivion, or the still smaller band that have fame on account of something good or great, we should have but a melancholy prospect before us. In that smaller band of the "immortals" there are some who had, while they lived, a magnanimous consciousness of fame hereafter, but there are others who enjoy it that were careless or indifferent about it while alive. But this almost hopeless prospect of man living again in his works, has never retarded his progress nor benumbed his energiesthe prospect of fame to each is too alluring; the vision, though perhaps baseless, deceives him in a pleasing dream, and fortifies him against the depression of mind, if not despair, that would follow reason and reflection. Without this stimulus, acting often in the mind that would repudiate its existence, man would fail in the great and laborious works he undertakes. What other power can sustain him in those mighty fabrics he builds up which can only be finished, if at all, at the termination of his life? What other power can spur him on, when, in old age, he is still found, step after step, ascending that steep mountain whose summit he cannot expect to reach before death takes hold of him? What other principle, but the desire of fame, could urge him on in labours almost Herculean, and with a hardihood and perseverance that never flags ?

The

The marvel is not so much in man's labour for fame, because in fame he expects a reward for his toils. marvel is, that the reward is one he can never personally enjoy.

3. Through works on science, literature, and philosophy, men chiefly aspire to fame; they are more enduring than any other works of man; and, as works of the mind, having a perpetual, undying influence on the opinions and