On some great sudden haste. O, what portents are

these ? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, 25 And I must know it, else he loves me not.

Shakspeare.

42. The exercise of the Memory in learning not sufficient.

To learn, seems, with many, to imply no more than a bare exercise of memory. To read, and to remember is, they imagine, all they have to do. I affirm on the

contrary that a great deal more is necessary, as to exer5 cise the judgment and the discursive faculty. I shall

put the case, that one were employed to teach you algebra ; and instead of instructing you in the manner of stating and resolving algebraic equations, he should

think it incumbent on him, only to inform you of all the 10 principal problems, that had at any time exercised the

art of the most famous algebraists, and the solutions they had given ; and being possessed of a retentive memory, I shall suppose, you have a distinct remembrance

both of the questions and the answers; could ye for 15 this, be said to have learnt algebra ? No, surely. To

teach you that ingenious and useful art, is to instruct you in those principles, by the proper application of which, you shall be enabled to solve the questions for

yourselves. In like manner, to teach you to understand 20 the scriptures, is to initiate you into those general prin

ciples, which will gradually enable you of yourselves, to enter into their sense and spirit. It is not to make you repeat by rote the judgments of others, but to

bring you to form judgments of your own; to see with 25 your own eyes, and not with other people's. I shall

conclude this prelection with the translation of a short passage from the Persian letters, which falls in entirely with my present subject. Rica having been to visit

the library of a French convent, writes thus to his friend 30 in Persia concerning what had passed. Father, said I

to the librarian, what are these huge volumes which fill the whole side of the library? These, said he, are the Interpreters of the scriptures. There is a prodigious

are lines.

number of them, replied I; the scriptures must have 35 been very dark formerly and very clear at present. Do there remain still any doubts ?

Are there now any points contested ? Are there, answered he with surprise, Are there? There are almost as many as there

You astonish me, said I, what then have all 40 these authors been doing ? These authors, returned

he, never searched the scriptures, for what ought to be believed, but for what they did believe themselves. They did not consider them as a book, wherein were

contained the doctrines which they ought to receive, 45 but as a work which might be made to authorize their

own ideas. For this reason, they have corrupted all the meanings, and have put every passage to the torture, to make it speak their own sense.

'Tis a country whereon people of all sects make invasions, and go for 50 pillage ; it is a field of battle, where when hostile na

tions meet, they engage, attack and skirmish in a thousand different ways.

Campbell

43.

Casabianca.*

1. The boy stood on the burning deck,

Whence all but him had fled ;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck,

Shone round him o'er the dead.

2 The flames rollid on--he would not go,

Without his father's word ;
That father, faint in death below,

His voice no longer heard.
3 He call'd aloud--" Say, father, say

If yet my task is done ?"
He knew not that the chieftain lay

Unconscious of his son.

* Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the admiral of the Orient, remained at his post in the battle of the Nile,) after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned ; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

1

4. “ Speak, Father !” once again he cried,

“If I may yet be gone !"
--And but the booming shots replied,

And fast the flames rolled on.
5 They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,

They caught the fag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,

Like banners in the sky.
6 There came a burst of thunder sound--

The boy--oh! where was he?
--Ask of the winds that far around

With fragments strewed the sea !
7 With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,

That well had borne their part-
But the noblest thing that perish'd there,
Was that young faithful heart.

Mrs. Hemans.

With cautious step, and ear awake,
He climbs the crag, and threads the brake;
And not the summer solstice, there,

Temper'd the midnight mountain air, 5 But every breeze that swept the wold,

Benumbed his drenched limbs with cold.
In dread, in danger, and alone,
Famish'd and chilled, through'ways unknown,

Tangled and steep, he journeyed on ; 10 Till, as a rock's huge point he turned,

A watch-fire close before him burned.
Beside its embers red and clear,
Basked, in his plaid, a mountaineer;

And up he sprung with sword in hand,-15 Thy name and purpose ! Saxon, stand !”.

“A stranger."--"What dost thou require ?"-
“Rest and a guide, and food and fire.
My life's beset, my path is lost,
The gale has chilled my limbs with frost."-

66

20 "Art thou a friend to Roderick ?"_"No."

“Thou darest not call thyself a foe ?”'--
"I dare ! to him and all the band
He brings to aid his murderous hand.”--

“Bold words !--but, though the beast of game 25 The privilege of chase may claim,

Though space and law the stag we lend,
Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend,
Who ever reck’d, where, how, or when,

The prowling fox was trapped or slain!
30 Thus treacherous scouts,-yet sure they lie,
Who say thou camest a secret spy

!"
"They do, by heaven !—Come Roderick Dhu
And of his clan the boldest two,

And let me but till morning rest
35 I write the falsehood on their crest.” —

"If by the blaze I mark aright,
Thou bear'st the belt and spur of Knight.”
“Then, by these tokens may'st thou know,

Each proud oppressor's mortal foe.”— 40 "Enough, enough ; sit down and share

A soldier's couch, a soldier's fare.”

Scott,

1 And thou hast walk'd about (how strange a story !)

In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,

And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,

Of which the very ruins are tremendous. 2 Speak! for thou long enough hast acted Dummy,

Thou hast a tongue--come let us hear its tune :
Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!

Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,
Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,

But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features. 3 Tell us—for doubtless thou canst recollect,

To whom should we assign the sphinx's fame? Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either Pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey's pillar really a misnomer?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer ? 4. Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden

By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade;
Then say what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue which at sunrise played ?
Perhaps thou wert a Priest--if so, my struggles

Are vain ;--Egyptian priests ne'er owned their juggles. 5 Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,

Has hob-a-nobb’d with Pharaoh glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,

A torch at the great Temple's dedication.
6 I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,

Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled, For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,

Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled :Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.
7 Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations;
The Roman empire has begun and ended ;

New worlds have risen--we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,

While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled. 8 Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head

When the great Persian conquerer, Cambyses,
March'd armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,

O’erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,
And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,

When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder ? 9 If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,

The nature of thy private life unfold :-
A heart has throbb'd beneath that leathern breast,

And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled ;-