The leaves of memory seem to make
A mournful rustling in the dark. Longfellow.
MEMORY-Ode to.

Will no remorse, will no decay,

O Memory, soothe thee into peace?
When life is ebbing fast away,

Will not thy hungry vultures cease?
Ah, no! as weeds from fading free,
Noxious and rank, yet verdantly,
Twine round a ruin'd tower;
So to the heart, untamed, will cling
The memory of an evil thing,

In life's departing hour:

Green is the weed when grey the wall,
And thistles rise while turrets fall.

But ever and anon of griefs subdued,
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting,
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;
And slight withal may be the things which
bring

Back on the heart the weight which it would fling

Aside for ever it may be a sound

A tone of music-summer's eve-or springA flower-the wind-the ocean-which shall wound,

Striking th' electric chain wherewith we're darkly bound;

And how and why we know not, nor can trace
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface
The blight and blackening which it leaves
behind,

Which out of things familiar, undesign'd,
When least we deem of such, calls up to view
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind,
The cold-the changed-perchance the dead

-anew,

The mourn'd, the loved, the lost-too many! yet how few. Ibid.

MEMORY-Pictures in.

Three pictures lined the four-walled cell where are stored for me the records of the past. First, Eton. All in that picture is in far perspective, receding, diminutive; but freshly-coloured, green, dewy, with a spring sky, piled with glittering yet showery clouds; for my childhood was not all sunshine,-it

MEMORY.

had its overcast, its cold, its stormy hours. Second, X, huge, dingy; the canvas cracked and smoked; a yellow sky, sooty clouds; no sun, no azure; the verdure of the suburbs blighted and sullied-a very dreary scene. Third, Belgium; and I will pause before this landscape. Green, reedy swamps; fields fertile but flat, cultivated in patches, that made them look like magnified kitchen-gardens; belts of cut trees, formal as pollard willows, skirting the horizon; narrow canals, gliding slow by the road-side; painted Flemish farmhouses; some very dirty hovels; a grey, dead sky; wet roads, wet fields, wet housetops; not a beautiful, scarcely a picturesque object met my eye along the whole route; yet, to me, all was beautiful, all was more than picturesque. Charlotte Brontë.

MEMORY-Pleasures of.

Come to me often, sportive Memory,

Thy hands are full of flowers, thy voice is sweet,

Thine innocent, uncareful look doth meet
The solitary cravings of mine eye;

I cannot let thee flit unheeded by,
For I have gentle words wherewith to greet
Thy welcome visits: pleasant hours are fleet,
So let us sit and talk the sand-glass dry,
Dear visitant, who comest, dark and light,
Morning and evening, and with merry voice
Tellest of new occasion to rejoice;
And playest round me in the fairy night,
Like a quaint spirit, on the moonlight beams
Threading the lazy labyrinth of dreams.
Henry Arnold.

MEMORY-a Source of Pleasure.

Memory, a source of pleasure and instruction, rather than that dreadful engine of colloquial oppression, into which it is sometimes erected. Sidney Smith.

I ought to grieve, but cannot what I ought:
I mourn the lover, not lament the fault;
I view my crime, but kindle at the view,
Repent old pleasures, and solicit new;
Now, turn'd to heaven, I weep my past
offence;

Now think of thee, and curse my innocence.
Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
"Tis sure the hardest science to forget. Pope.
MEMORY-Training of.

It is a fact well attested by experience, that the memory may be seriously injured by pressing upon it too hardly and continuously in early life. Whatever theory we hold as to this great function of our nature, it is certain that its powers are only gradually developed; and that, if forced into premature exercise, they are impaired by the effort. This is a maxim, indeed, of general import, applying to the condition and culture of every faculty of body and mind, but singularly to the one we are now considering, which forms, in one sense, the foundation of intellectual life. A regulated exercise, short of fatigue, is improving to it; but we are bound to refrain from goading it by constant and laborious efforts in early life, and before the instrument is strengthened to its work, or it decays under our hands. Sir H. Holland.

MEN-Three Classes of.

There are but three classes of men: the retrograde, the stationary, and the progressive.

Lavater.

MEN-and their Heirs.

He who sees his heir in his own child, carries his eye over hopes and possessions lying far beyond his gravestone, viewing his life, even here, as a period but closed with a comma. He who sees his heir in another man's child, sees the full stop at the end of the sentence. Bulwer Lytton.

MEN OF BUSINESS-Rarity of.

Rare, almost as great poets, rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and martyrs, are consummate men of business. A man, to be excellent in this way, must not only be variously gifted, but his gifts should be nicely proportioned to one another. He must have in a high degree that virtue which men have always found the least pleasant of virtues-prudence. His prudence, however, will not be merely of a cautious and quiescent order, but that which, being ever actively engaged, is more fitly called discretion than prudence. He requires a great knowledge of character, with that exquisite tact which feels unerringly the right moment when to act. A discreet rapidity must pervade all the movements of his thought and action. He must be singularly free from vanity, and is generally found to be an enthusiast, who has the art to conceal his enthusiasm.

MEN OF GENIUS.

Helps.

The men of genius that I fancy most have You erectile heads, like the cobra-di-capello. I remember what they tell of William Pinkney, the great pleader; how in his eloquent paroxysms the veins of his neck would swell, and his face flush, and his eyes glitter, until be seemed on the verge of apoplexy. The hydraulic arrangements for supplying the brain with blood are only second in importance to its own organization.

The bulbous-headed fellows that steam well when they are at work, are the men that draw big audiences, and give us marrowy books and pictures. It is a good sign to have one's feet grow cold when he is writing. A great writer and speaker once told me that he I often wrote with his feet in hot water; but for this, all his blood would have run into his head, as the mercury sometimes withdraws into the ball of a thermometer.

You don't suppose that my remarks made at this table are like so many postage-stamps, do you, each to be only once uttered? If you do, you are mistaken. He must be a poor creature that does not often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of advice, "Know thyself," never alluding to that sentiment again during the

MEN OF HONOUR-to be Relied on.

Napoleon, in his confidential conversations with me, drew a distinction between a man of honour and a conscientious man, giving his preference to the former, because, he said, we know what to expect from a man who is bound simply and purely by his words and his engagements, while in the other case we depend on his opinions and feelings, which may vary. "He does that which he thinks he ought to do, or which he supposes is best." "Thus," he added, "my father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, has done that which he believes conducive to the interest of his people. He is an honest man, a conscientious man, but not a of honour. You, for example, if the enemy had invaded France and stood upon the

man

MEN OF SENSE.

We do not commonly find men of superior sense amongst those of the highest fortune. Juvenal.

MEN-Unlucky.

Never have anything to do with an unlucky place, or an unlucky man. I have seen many clever men, very clever men, who had not shoes to their feet. I never act with them. Their advice sounds very well, but they cannot get on themselves; and if they cannot do good to themselves, how can they do good to me? Rothschild. MERCHANT-Description of the.

A marchant was ther with a forked berd,
In mottelee, and highe on hors he sat,
And on his hed a Flaundrish bever hat.
His botes clapsed fayre and fetisly;
His reasons spake he ful solempnely,
Souning alway of the encrese of his winning.
He wold the see were kept for any thing
Betwixen Middleburgh and Orewell,
Wel coud he in eschanges sheldes selle.
This worthy man ful wel his wit besette;
There wiste no wight that he was in dette,
So stedefastly didde he his governance,
With his bargeines, and with his chevisance.
Forsothe he was a worthy man withalle,
But soth to sayn, I n'ot how men him calle.
Chaucer.
MERCHANT-Social Position and Im-
portance of the.

I found it to be true, that a true-bred merchant is the best gentleman in the nation; that in knowledge, in manners, in judgment of things, the merchant outdid many of the nobility; that having once mastered the world, and being above the demand of business, though having no real estate, he was then superior to most gentlemen, even in estate; that a merchant in flush business and a capital stock is able to spend more money than a gentleman of £5,000 a-year estate; that while a merchant spent, he only spent what he got, and not that; and that he laid up great sums every year. That an estate is a pond; but that a trade is a spring; that if the first is once mortgaged, it seldom gets clear, but embarrassed the person for ever; but the merchant had his estate continually flowing.

De Foe.

There are not more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of nature, find work for the poor, and wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great.

Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has multiplied the number of the rich, made has given us a kind of additional empire: it our landed estates infinitely more valuable than they were formerly, and added to them an accession of other estates as valuable as the Addison.

lands themselves.

MERCIES-Acknowledgment of.

Let not the blessings we receive daily from God, make us not to value, or not praise Him, because they be common: let not us forget to praise Him for the innocent mirth and pleasure we have met with since we met together. What would a blind man give to see the pleasant rivers, and meadows, and flowers, and fountains, that we have met with since we met together? I have been told, that if a man that was born blind, could obtain to have his sight for but only one hour, during his whole life, and should, at the first opening of his eyes, fix his sight upon the sun when it was in his full glory, either at the rising or setting of it, he would be so transported and amazed, and so admire the glory of it, that he would not willingly turn his eyes from that first ravishing object, to behold all the other various beauties this world could present to him. And this, and many other like blessings, we enjoy daily; and for most of them, because they be so common, most men forget to pay their praises; but let not us, because it is a sacrifice so pleasing to Him that made the sun, and us, and still protects us, and gives us flowers, and showers, and meat, and content. Izaak Walton.

MERCIES-Recollections of.

Recollections of former mercies is the proper antidote against a temptation to despair in the day of calamity; and as, in the divine dispensations, which are always uniform and like themselves, whatever has happened happens again when the circumstances are similar, the experience of ancient times is to be called in to our aid, and duly consulted. Nay, we may remember the time, when we ourselves were led to compose and utter a song of joy and triumph, on occasion of signal mercies vouchsafed to us. Upon these topics we should, in the night of affliction, commune with our own hearts and make diligent search, as Daniel did in Babylon, into the cause, the nature, and the probable continuance of our

Great though the crime, great is the love,
If those who seek it are sincere.

Say not that any crime of man, &c.
Dr. Mackay.

There is more mercy in the merciful God
Than e'er inhabited the pregnant eyes
Of men, who waste unprofitable tears
For all imaginable woes, and leave
The poor uncomforted, to wail their own.
Coleridge.

MERCY-Quality of.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute of God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,-
That, in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to

render

Dryden.

MERCY-Time for.

Couldst thou not grant the merciful

Elevation is to merit what dress is to a handsome person.

There is merit without elevation; but there is no elevation without some merit.

The mark of extraordinary merit is to see those most envious of it constrained to praise.

The art of being able to make a good use of moderate abilities wins esteem, and often confers more reputation than real merit.

Nature creates merit, and fortune brings it into play. La Rochefoucauld.

MERIT-long before Discovered.

Men are so employed about themselves, that they have not leisure to distinguish and pene