DEDICATED

TO

THE HON. GEORGE FREDERICK BOYLE.

To the nephew for whose sake, in his early years, I first became an Author; whose friendship now is one of my chief enjoyments in life, and in whose memory, when life is over, it shall be my latest earthly wish long to survive, these "jottings for all nations"

Are inscribed by

9, CHESHAM PLACE,

LONDON.

CATHERINE SINCLAIR.

THE KALEIDOSCOPE

OF

ANECDOTES AND APHORISMS.

Learned he is, and can take note,

Transcribe, collect, translate and quote.

WHY are not more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly, than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get more. Let every book-worm, when in any fragrant scarce old tome, he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it.—Coleridge.

I hold myself indebted to any one, from whose enlightened understanding another ray of knowledge communicates to mine. Really to inform the mind is to correct and to enlarge the heart.-Junius.

B

Many books,

Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not

A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
Uncertain and unsettled still remains-

Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself.-Milton.
Even shavings of gold are carefully to be kept.-Fuller.

Let me indulge in the hope, that, among the illustrious youths whom this ancient kingdom, famed alike for its nobility and its learning, has produced, to continue her fame through after ages: possibly among those I now address, there may be found some one-I ask no more -willing to give a bright example to other nations in a path yet untrodden, by taking the lead of his fellowcitizens-not in frivolous amusements, nor in the degrading pursuits of the ambitious vulgar-but in the truly noble task of enlightening the mass of his countrymen, and of leaving his own name no longer encircled, as heretofore, with barbaric splendour, or attached to courtly gewgaws, but illustrated by the honours most worthy of our rational nature, coupled with the diffusion of knowledge, and gratefully pronounced through all ages, by millions whom his wise beneficence has rescued from ignorance and vice. This is the true mark for the aim of all who either prize the enjoyment of true happiness, or set a right value upon a high and unsullied renown; and if the benefactors of mankind, when they rest from their pious labours, shall be permitted to enjoy hereafter the privilege of looking down upon the blessings with which their toils and sufferings have clothed the scene of their former existence, do not vainly imagine that, in a ́state of exalted purity and wisdom, the founders of mighty

dynasties, the conquerors of new empires, or the more vulgar crowd of evil doers, who have sacrificed to their own aggrandisement the good of their fellow-creatures, will be gratified by contemplating the monuments of their inglorious fame! Their's will be the delight—their's the triumph-who can trace the remote effects of their enlightened benevolence in the improved condition of their species, and exult in the reflection that the prodigious change they now survey, with eyes that age and sorrow can make dim no more-of knowledge become powervirtue sharing in the dominion-superstition trampled under foot-tyranny driven from the world-are the fruits, precious, though costly, and though late reaped, yet long enduring, of all the hardships and all the hazards. they encountered here below!-From Lord Brougham's Inaugural Discourse as Lord Rector of Glasgow University, 1825.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Dean Nowell having obtained from a foreigner several fine cuts and pictures representing the stories and passions of the saints and martyrs, placed them against the epistles and gospels of their festivals in a Common Prayer-book. This book he caused to be richly bound, and laid on the cushion intended for the Queen's use, in the place where she commonly sat, intending it for a New Year's Gift to her Majesty, and thinking to have pleased her fancy therewith, but it had not that effect, but the contrary. When she came to her place, and saw the pictures, she frowned, and then shut it. Calling the verger, she bade him bring her the old book, wherein she was formerly wont to read. After service, whereas she was wont to get