indebted to the astrologers for the elucidations of the most difficult problems in astronomy. The clown, who in running to catch a fallen star, stumbled, and kicked up a hidden treasure, has found many an unintentional imitator among scientific visionaries and stargazers. Perhaps more has been gained by long and vainly seeking the quadrature of the circle, the longitude, and perpetual motion, than would have arisen from immediate success. Morals, too, have their philosopher's stone, in other shapes than those of Plato's Atlantis, or More's Utopia; and it is healthy to chace such chimeras, if it were only for the sake of air and exercise, in an atmosphere of purity. Many real virtues may be acquired by straining after an imaginary and unattainable perfection. Crede quòd habes, et habes. When a thing is once believed possible, it is half realized.

STONE-to pelt with. Dr. Magee affirms, that the Roman Catholics have a Church without a religion;—the Dissenters, a religion without a Church;-the Establishment, both a Church and a religion. "This is false," observes Robert Hall of Leicester; "but it is an excellent stone for a clergyman to pelt with."

STUPIDITY-is often more apparent than real; it may be indisposition rather than incapacity. The human mind is not like logic-the major does not always contain the minor; and men who feel themselves fit for great things, cannot always accomplish little ones. Claude Lorraine was dismissed by the pastry-cook to whom he had been apprenticed, for sheer stupidity. The difficulty did not consist in bringing his mind up, but in bringing it down to the manufacture of buns and tartlets.

STYLE.--To have a good style in writing, you should have none; as perfect beauty of face consists in the absence of any predominant feature. Mannerism, whether in writing

or painting, can never be a merit. Swift is right when he decides, that "Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a good style."

"He who would write well," says Roger Ascham, "must follow the advice of Aristotle,-to speak as the common people speak, and to think as the wise think." Style, however, is but the colouring of the picture, which should always be held subordinate to the design. "We may well forgive Tertullian his iron style," says Balzac, "when we recollect what excellent weapons he has forged out of this iron, for the defence of Christianity, and the defeat of the Marcionites and Valentinians."

SUBSCRIPTIONS-private. Paying your creditors by taxing your friends; an approved method for getting rid of both. Many years ago a worthy and well-known Baronet, having become embarrassed in his circumstances, a Subscription was set on foot by his friends, and a letter, soliciting contributions, was addressed to the late Lord Erskine, who immediately despatched the following answer :

I am in general an enemy to Subscriptions of this nature; first, because my own finances are by no means in a flourishing plight; and secondly, because pecuniary assistance, thus conferred, must be equally painful to the donor and the receiver. As I feel, however, the sincerest gratitude for your public services, and regard for your private worth, I have great pleasure in subscribing-(Here the worthy Baronet, big with expectation, turned over the leaf, and finished the perusal of the note, which terminated as follows:)—in subscribing myself,

"My dear Sir John,

"Yours very faithfully,

" ERSKINE."

SUGGESTION-A friendly one. A man who had had his ears cuffed in a squabble, without resenting the affront, being

shortly afterwards in a party, and in want of a pinch of snuff, exclaimed, "I cannot think what I have done with my box; it is not in either of my pockets."-"Try your ears," said a bystander.

SUPERSTITION-as Plutarch has well observed, is much worse than atheism, since it must be less offensive to deny the existence of such a deity as Saturn, than to admit his existence, and affirm, that he was such an unnatural monster, as even to devour his own children.

Archbishop Tillotson says, " According as men's notions of God are, such will their religions be; if they have gross and false conceptions of God, their religion will be absurd and superstitious. If men fancy God to be an ill-natured Being, armed with infinite power, who takes delight in the misery and ruin of his creatures, and is ready to take all advantages against them, they may fear him, but they will hate him, and they will be apt to be such towards one another, as they fancy God to be toward them; for all religion doth naturally incline men to imitate him whom they worship."-Sermons, vol. i. p. 181.

"Atheism," observes a Christian philosopher, "leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men."-(Bacon's Essays, p. 96.) In point of fact, the misrepresentation of a deity, leads immediately to the denial of his existence; a result which has not escaped the acuteness of Plutarch. "The atheist," says that writer, "contributes not in the least to superstition; but superstition, having given out so hideous an idea of the Deity, has frightened many into the utter disbelief of any such being; because, they think it much better, nay, more reasonable, that there should be no deity, than one whom they see more reason to hate and abominate, than to love, honour, and reverence. Thus in

considerate men, shocked at the deformity of superstition, run directly into the opposite extreme of atheism, heedlessly skipping over true piety, which is the golden mean between both."

How certainly should we avoid the degrading superstition of demonism, did we but act upon the following position of Archbishop Tillotson:" Every good man is, in some degree, partaker of the divine nature, and feels that in himself, which he conceives to be in God; so that this man does experience what others do but talk of;-he sees the image of God in himself, and is able to discourse of him from an inward sense and feeling of his excellency."-(Sermons, vol. iii. p. 42.) If we thus behold the Deity reflected in our own hearts, no wonder that the religion of the good man should be rational and cheerful, and that of the bad man superstitious and gloomy. How forcibly does the latter recall the passage in Bacon's noble essay-" -“ Of Unity in Religion," where he says "It was a great blasphemy when the devil said, 'I will ascend, and be like the Highest;' but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring him in, saying-'I will descend, and be like the Prince of Darkness.' Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture, or raven; and to set out of the bark of the Christian Church a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins."

SUPPER. A receipt for indigestion, and a sleepless night. A Spanish proverb says-A little in the morning is enough; enough at dinner is but little; a little at night is too much. This agrees pretty nearly with the Latin dictum

Pone gulæ metas, ut sit tibi longior ætas,

Esse cupis sanus ?-Sit tibi parca manus.

SYMPATHY.-A sensibility, of which its objects are sometimes insensible. It may be perilous to discourage a feeling, whereof there is no great superabundance in this selfish and hard-hearted world; but even of the little that

exists, a portion is frequently thrown away. Such is the power of adaptation in the human mind, that those who seem to be in the most pitiable plight, have often the least occasion for our pity. A city damsel, whose ideas had been Arcadianised by the perusal of pastorals, having once made an excursion to a distance of twenty miles from London, wandered into the fields in the hope of discovering a bona fide live shepherd. To her infinite delight, she at length encountered one, under a hawthorn hedge in full blossom, with his dog by his side, his crook in his hand, and his sheep round about him, just as if he were sitting to be modelled in china for a chimney ornament. To be sure, he did not exhibit the azure jacket, jessamine vest, pink tiffany inexpressibles, peach-coloured stockings, and golden buckles of those faithful portraitures. This was mortifying; still more so, that he was neither particularly young nor cleanly; but, most of all, that he wanted the indispensable accompaniment of a pastoral reed, in order that he might beguile his solitude with the charms of music. Touched with pity at this privation, and lapsing, unconsciously, into poetical language, the civic damsel exclaimed“Ah! gentle shepherd, tell me where's your pipe ?”—“ I left it at home, Miss," replied the clown, scratching his head, "cause I ha'nt got no baccy."

A benevolent committee-man of the Society for superseding the necessity of climbing boys, seeing a sooty urchin weeping bitterly, at the corner of a street, asked him the cause of his distress;—" Master has been using me shamefully," sobbed the sable sufferer;" he has been letting Jem Hudson go up the chimney at No. 9, when it was my turn! He said it was too high, and too dangerous for me, but I'll go up a chimney with Jem Hudson any day in the year; that's what I will !”

There is a local sympathy, however, in which we cannot well be mistaken, and which it is lamentable not to possess; for that man-to use the words of Dr. Johnson-" is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the