Home Traits.

LOVE OF HOME.

ENGLAND is, above all other countries, favourable to individual industry, and that energy of character which, developed and well directed, succeeds in the world. Still, failure neither is nor ever has been rare; and private munificence and public benevolenee have provided "many happy ports and havens" for those whose evening of life is clouded with storm. We have visited not a few of these sacred places these palaces of philanthropy; we have gone about their buildings-their noble halls glowing with comfort, and their tables beaming with good cheer. We have for a brief hour enjoyed the quiet of these retreats, and thought how their decayed brethren, jaded with adversity and buffeted with misfortune, may find here that consolation and repose which the outside world has denied them. These may be found in the fellowship of the dining-hall, the social walk in the garden, and the assembling for worship in the chapel. All this, however, is but the bright side of this mode of life; and when the time arrives for the brethren to retire, each to his solitary chamber, then comes the pang of isolation from the world-even the ungrateful world! And, perchance, they look from the casement upon the larger foundation-buildings, and are by them still more forcibly reminded that this noble place is not their own—in short, that it presents not the joys nor the delights which are conveyed to the sensitive heart by that brief but touching word -HOME!

It is scarcely possible to overrate the importance of this love of home in our scheme of earthly happiness. Southey has well observed: "Whatever strengthens our local attachments is favourable both to individual and national cha

racter. Our home, our birthplace, our native land; think, for a while, what the virtues are which rise out of the feelings connected with these words."

Then, how is man, in the loneliness we have referred to, parted from the sweet solace he most needs in his hour of woe! Such consolation has been thus picturesquely bodied forth by one of our happiest writers on domestic life: "As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs; so it is beautifully ordered by Providence, that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart."*

FAMILY PORTRAITS.

We remember reading a humorous sketch entitled, "The late Mr. Smith," whose portrait after his death was removed by his widow to the lumber-room, lest it should be displeasing to her second husband: occasionally the children would bring out the portrait, and with a rusty foil run "the ugly old man" through the eyes.

Here we have one of the reasons why family portraits are so often thrust aside; but there are several others. The Rev. Mr. Eagles relates the following, in Blackwood's Magazine: "I remember, when a boy, walking with an elderly gentleman, and passing a broker's stall, there was the portrait of a fine florid gentleman in regimentals. He stopped to look at it-he might have bought it for a few shillings. After he had gone away- That,' said he, 'is the portrait of my wife's great uncle-member for the county, and colonel of militia: you see how he is degraded to these steps.' 'Why do you not rescue him?' said I. Because he left me nothing,' was the reply. A relative of mine, an old lady, hit upon a happy device; the example is worth following. Her husband was the last of his race, for she had no chil

* Washington Irving.

dren. She took all the family portraits out of their frames, rolled up all the pictures, and put them in the coffin with the deceased."

Sheridan has turned an incident of this class to admirable account, in his School for Scandal, in the reservation of Uncle Oliver's portrait from sale.

Sometimes a good picture has unpleasant associations. “That is an excellent portrait of Ireland, the Shakspeare forger," said a collector to a picture-dealer in Wardour-street; whose ready reply was, “Will you buy it, sir? it is but half a guinea.” “No,” answered the other; “it would seem either that I admired Ireland's dishonest ingenuity, or that I had been his friend."

HOW TO KEEP FRIENDS.

When Goldsmith once talked to Johnson of the difficulty of living on very intimate terms with any one with whom you differed on an important topic, Johnson replied: “ Why, sir, you must shun the subject as to which you disagree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke; I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and effulgence of conversation; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party."

Mr. Helps, in his admirable work, Friends in Council, well observes: 66 A rule for living happily with others is to avoid having stock subjects of disputation. It mostly happens, when people live much together, that they come to have certain set topics, around which, from frequent dispute, there is such a growth of angry words, mortified vanity, and the like, that the original difference becomes a standing subject for quarrel; and there is a tendency in all minor disputes to drift down to it. Again: if people wish to live well together, they must not hold too much to logic, and supposing every thing is to be settled by sufficient reason. Dr. Johnson saw this clearly with regard to married people when he said, 'Wretched would be the pair, above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason every morning all the minute detail of a domestic day.' But the application should be much more general than he made it. There is no time for such reasonings, and nothing

Lasting Friendships.

221

that is worth them. And when we recollect how two lawyers, or two politicians, can go on contending, and that there is no end of one-sided reasoning on any subject, we shall not be sure that such contention is the best mode for arriving at truth. But certainly it is not the way to arrive at good temper."

The most gifted men are least addicted to depreciate either friends or foes. Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Fox were always more inclined to overrate them; your shrewd, sly, evil-speaking fellow is generally a shallow person; and frequently he is as venomous, as false when he flatters as when he reviles. He seldom praises John but to vex Thomas.

SMALL COURTESIES.

How much politeness and winning of the affections exist in small courtesies, is well exemplified in the following anecdote related by a lady of a gentleman who had been the politest man of his generation. On returning once from school for the holidays, she had been put under his charge for the journey. They stopped for the night at a Cornish inn. Supper was ordered, and soon there appeared a dainty dish of woodcocks. Her cavalier led her to the board with the air of a Grandison, and then proceeded to place all the legs of the birds on her plate. At first, with her school-girl prejudices in favour of wings and in disfavour of legs and drumsticks, she felt rather angered at having these (as she supposed) uninviting and least delicate parts imposed upon her; but in after years, when gastronomic light had beamed on her, and the experience of many suppers brought true appreciation, she did full justice to the memory of the man who could sacrifice such morceaux as woodcocks' thighs to the crude appetite of a girl, and who could thus show his innate deference for womanhood even in such budding form.

LASTING FRIENDSHIPS.

The man who ill-naturedly said that the church would not hold his acquaintance, but the pulpit would contain his friends, cannot be congratulated upon the disproportion.

dren. She took all the family portraits out of their frames, rolled up all the pictures, and put them in the coffin with the deceased."

Sheridan has turned an incident of this class to admirable account, in his School for Scandal, in the reservation of Uncle Oliver's portrait from sale.

Sometimes a good picture has unpleasant associations. "That is an excellent portrait of Ireland, the Shakspeare forger," said a collector to a picture-dealer in Wardour-street; whose ready reply was, "Will you buy it, sir? it is but half a guinea." "No," answered the other; "it would seem either that I admired Ireland's dishonest ingenuity, or that I had been his friend."

HOW TO KEEP FRIENDS.

When Goldsmith once talked to Johnson of the difficulty of living on very intimate terms with any one with whom you differed on an important topic, Johnson replied: "Why, sir, you must shun the subject as to which you disagree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke; I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and effulgence of conversation; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party."

Mr. Helps, in his admirable work, Friends in Council, well observes: "A rule for living happily with others is to avoid having stock subjects of disputation. It mostly happens, when people live much together, that they come to have certain set topics, around which, from frequent dispute, there is such a growth of angry words, mortified vanity, and the like, that the original difference becomes a standing subject for quarrel; and there is a tendency in all minor disputes to drift down to it. Again: if people wish to live well together, they must not hold too much to logic, and supposing every thing is to be settled by sufficient reason. Dr. Johnson saw this clearly with regard to married people when he said, 'Wretched would be the pair, above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason every morning all the minute detail of a domestic day.' But the application should be much more general than he made it. There is no time for such reasonings, and nothing