for the blind; and a physician lying awake and listening to the beating of his heart, contributes the most learned book upon the diseases of that organ."

There are a thousand other instances which might be given of the accidental direction of the mind to particular subjects, or the apparently accidental developement of genius. But whatever may have first turned our studies or thoughts in any particular direction, in no case will success be achieved, or excellence arrived at, or any sure progress be made, unless there be some personal effort, unless we appropriate, as I before observed, the information given to us by some operation of our own minds: unless we strive to exercise our own powers in any particular department. However true it may be that happy accidents might, at a critical juncture, have influenced their course, yet it was only in this way of patient study that Demosthenes or Xenophon achieved their fame, or that Opie or Giotto have a reputation as painters. The answer of Euclid to Ptolemy, King of Egypt, when he asked him, if geometry could not be made easier, has passed into a proverb: "There is no royal road to learning:" was all the encouragement the philosopher could give the King. Dryden marks the progress towards excellence in the following couplet :

is

"What the child admired,

"The youth endeavoured, and the man acquired.”

It is interesting to follow great authors or artists in their careful training and accomplishing of the mind: like the sculptor, we heard of just now, who had been thirty years learning to make a bust in ten days. "The long morning of life (again observes Mr. Willmott) spent in making the weapons and armour which manhood and age are to polish and to improve. Abp. Usher, when only twenty years old, formed the bold resolution of reading all the Greek and Latin Fathers, and at the dawn of his 39th year he completed the task. Milton's youthful studies were the landscapes and the treasury of his blindness and of his want. 'I have neglected nothing,' was the modest explanation which N. Poussin gave of his success."

The great hindrance, however, in the way of any satisfactory progress in the best courses of general literary pursuits on the part of the many, even where an earnest desire shall have been excited,

must always be the difficulty, in the first place, of choice. Their time and opportunities are limited, and, without judicious assistance, they will hardly make a good selection of authors: and, even if they do, perhaps they will spend too much of their time, in reading what might be not inconveniently omitted, or what being briefly explained would allow of their passing forward at once to more striking passages and more important matter. Here, then, I cannot but think, that something in the shape of Lectures or Readings for an Institution like this might be made more useful, as well as more easily attained than they are. And I am sure that to many minds independent of its withdrawing them from mere idleness or something worse, they would be increasingly acceptable and improving. We hear in England, in the present day, that crowds will assemble just to hear Mr. Dickens read his Christmas Carol, or some other of his minor works-as in ancient times crowds used to gather together to hear Homer recited at Athens, or Herodotus at the Olympic Games. Now, without attempting the original Greek of Homer or Herodotus, or any of the Latin Classics, which would require of course long and careful study to acquire the original languages, what a rich field lies before us of fine English Classic lore-most of it much newer to nearly all of you than "the Christmas Carol :" to which (as in the case of Mr. Parker at St. Martin's) might be added any of the best translations of the ancients. It is astonishing by attention and regularity and judicious management, what a large amount of valuable ground might be travelled over, in the course of two or three hours a week, during the six winter months. And I own I think that thus far greater progress might be made in the acquisition of Knowledge, and combined with mental training and improvement, than by the usual system of ordinary public lectures, for an Institution like this. An author should be selected, some general account given of him and his work and then from time to time, certain of the finest selected passages should be read, an abridgment being given of the intermediate matter, so as not to break the thread of the story. And why may not History or Biography thus afford as much pleasure as a modern fictitious tale. It is forever the question of a child when listening to any story that excites its interest,-but is this all really true?

And moreover truth, we are often reminded, is in numberless instances stranger than fiction: independent of the interest attaching to that which, we feel, we may picture to ourselves with all the vividness of an actual fact. I remember once hearing of a gentleman, who, finding two ladies reading for the first time the account of the trial of the seven Bishops, was about to speak to them' respecting what they were reading, upon which they anxiously stopped him, saying "Oh! pray don't tell us how it will all end; it is so intensely interesting." And I can well remember too myself as a boy, reading with unsatisfied eagerness Historical and Biographical works, such as Cook's Voyages, or Robertson's History of America, the most stirring passages of which latter work have since been all painted with still fuller detail and truth by Prescott in his History of Mexico and Peru. "History (to quote the words of the author of the Pleasures of Literature) presents the pleasantest features of poetry and fiction: the majesty of the Epic; the moving incidents of the Drama; the surprises and morals of Romance. Wallace is a ruder Hector; Robinson Crusoe is not stranger than Croesus: the Knights of Ashby never burnish the page of Scott with richer lights of lance and armour, than the Carthaginians winding down the Alps cast upon Livy. History may be considered in three lights-a pleasurable, an educational and a moral, as it entertains the fancy, opens new sources of instruction, and cherishes or enlarges the feeling of virtue. A scholar, in his experience, may be 6000 years old, and have learned brick-making under Pharaoh. Dryden called history a perspective glass, carrying the mind to a vast distance, and taking in the remotest objects of antiquity. The lives, however, of nations, as of individuals often concentrate their lustre and interest in a few passages. Certain episodes may be judiciously selected. Such as the ages of Pericles, or Augustus, Elizabeth or Louis XIV, and Charles V. Sometimes a particular chapter embraces the wonder of a century, as the Feudal System, the Dawn of Discovery, and the Printing Press. But the fragments must be bound together by a connecting line of knowledge, however slender encircling the whole series of enquiries.”

General abridgments of entire works of eminent writers, though they may give us a sufficient acquaintance with certain dry hard

facts, are for the most part always heavy, dull and disappointing, and just so in proportion to the excellence of the original work. What we yearn after are the graphic details, the minute incidents, the reality, that enables us to bring the scene, as it were, all before us, and secure our warm interest on behalf of those engaged. We shall for ever find all this in translations; but it is next to impossible in mere abridgments. Good translations are like good engravings from the pictures of great masters; they cannot give us all the richness of the coloring, but they may give us the beauty of the design, and all the minute incidents of the piece. In abridgments also, we lose all or nearly all evidence of the talent of the original author; the reflections and political sagacity, which are so large a portion of their value. Why, how large a portion of the arguments used by the late Sir S. Romilly and Sir. J. Macintosh, in their speeches in the House of Commons, on the subject of capital punishment, is to be found in the 3rd Book of Thucydides, in the debate at Athens, specially in the speech of Diodotus, respecting the execution of Mitylenæans. Again, what thrilling interest is given in the same author, by the minute touches with which he fills up the pictures, in his account of the siege of Platæa, the Corcyræan Sedition, or the plague at Athens-the last not surpassed by the fictitious tale of Defoe, respecting the Plague of London. Once more, what is it has so roused public attention, during the last twelve months, on the subject of the present Crimean expedition? Has it not been because we have had so constantly before us all the little details of the sufferings, the heroism, the wounds and the death of the combatants? Just so is the account given by the Grecian historian of the expedition of the Athenians to Syracuse. An expedition which, in so many ways, bears a singular resemblance to the siege of Sebastopol : though differing in this most material particular, that at Syracuse the besieged, at Sebastopol the besiegers, proved victorious. We have first the account of the magnificent preparations of the armament; the names of the commanders, their characters, the reluctance with which Nicias accepts the post assigned him; the expedition sails. Then the little episode of the overthrow of the statues of Mercury, throughout the whole city of Athens; the con-

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sequent ferment; Alcibiades, the most energetic of the leaders, is implicated, and his recall decided upon. The arrival of the expedition at Syracuse; the description of that city, with its several fortified harbors, and lines of fortification on the land side. The first successes of the Athenians. A rising ground which nearly commanded the whole city taken by surprise; but the besiegers are then met by a counter wall; this is stormed and taken also, but another wall has been erected within. There are full descriptions of the varied success of the combatants, and the arrival of succours to each party at critical conjunctures. But at last the Athenians, after much suffering, determine to abandon the siege, as impracticable. Just as they are embarking, and when they might have made good their retreat, a total eclipse of the moon occurs,―their superstitious fears, dismay, and fatal delay in their departure, and subsequent total destruction of their whole magnificent armament—both fleet and army—are described: winding up with the closing incident respecting many of the prisoners sold as slaves in Sicily, who gained the good will and favor of their masters because they were able to repeat to them large portions of the poetry of Euripides, then at the height of his fame at Athens. So popular were the works of that great tragedian throughout Sicily, that some even of the stragglers of the defeated army are affirmed to have procured for themselves shelter and hospitality, during their flight, by the same attraction. And Euripides, we are informed, on the authority of Plutarch, lived to receive the thanks of several among these unhappy sufferers, after their return to Athens.

And the same observations will apply to poetry, where its story is matter of invention. It is still the detailed incidents that give the feeling of reality to the picture, and excite our interest and win our sympathy. Hence it is that every schoolboy when reading Homer becomes for the nonce either a Trojan or a Greek; rushes with Hector to fire the ships, yearns to give him back again his spear, when he finds how Pallas has played the warrior false in his last single combat with Achilles; or joins Diomed and Ulysses, in the excitement of their night adventure in the Trojan camp. It is for this same reason that we feel so deeply for the grief and humiliation of old King Priam, when we go with him to beg from stern Achilles the dead body of his son.