days, struggling with misfortune, suffering "the rich man's contumely," and the neglect and scorn of former familiars, but suffering with fortitude and with pious resignation; a family always poor and accustomed to endure hardship, but of pure morals, industrious, honest, unrepining, contented, daily offering up thanks to God for that little which it enjoys; a Father, a Mother, oppressed with poverty, yet striving, with all the little means in their power, to school their children, and at the same time, both by precept and example, training them up, at home, in the way they should go; these, to the mor al ken, are among the most lovely spectacles that are ever exhibited in this fallen world. True, these humble virtues are like the flowers that "blush unseen." They are scarcely noticed, and much less admired; while thousands greet with admiration and applause, whatever of shining virtue the eye can descry in the ranks of wealth and grandeur.

The Rev. G. Crabbe, "the poet of reality, and of reality in low life," has portrayed, with masterly powers of description, both vicious and virtuous poverty-not from fancy, but from what he saw and knew. If the images of depravity, in his poem, The Borough, be too coarse, too naked, and too hideous, to excite other emotions than those of disgust, the images of virtue, which, also, were taken from the deepest shades of poverty, possess almost unrivalled charms. The Tale, for instance, of the Sad Girl, a poor maid of the Borough, who, after waiting a long time in anxious expectation of the return of the young sailor that had promised to marry her, at length received him emaciated and mortally sick, and nursed him day and night with the utmost tenderness till he breathed his last: this tale, in point of heart-moving interest, perhaps has scarcely a rival in the history even of romance and fiction.

The following few lines of it show how venerable, how sacred, how lovely, is the cottage of the poor, when adorned with virtue and pure religion :

"Still long she nurs'd him; tender thoughts meantime
Were interchang'd, and hopes and views sublime.

To her he came to die, and every day

She took some portion of the dread away;

With him she pray'd, to him his Bible read,
Sooth'd the faint heart, and held the aching head:
She came with smiles the hour of pain to cheer;
Apart she sigh'd; alone she shed the tear;
Then, as if breaking from a cloud, she gave
Fresh light, and gilt the prospect of the grave."

Blessed indeed are such poor! and of such, the number is, in all probability, far greater than is generally imagined; the virtuous deeds and heavenly dispositions of the obscure children of poverty being very little known or noticed, save by the Omniscient Eye.

There are latent virtues, as well as latent vices, which are brought to light by circumstances; in the depths of adversity are shown estimable and amiable qualities, which nothing but adversity could disclose. The only perfect character that has ever appeared on the stage of this fallen world, was made perfect through suffering.* Even He could not have exhibited the sublime virtues which he did, had he not taken upon him the form of a servant, and passed his life under the sharpest trials of suffering humanity.

*Heb. ii. 10.

CHAP. LIX.

Of Frivolity of Character.

THERE are, of both sexes, a number of volatile persons, who bear a near resemblance to the little playsome birds that skip perpetually from bush to bush. Their attention is never fixed; their thoughts run upon every thing by turns, and stay upon nothing long. In conversation they are unsettled and flighty; when they read, "they gallop through a book like a child looking for pictures."

Characters of this sort abound in the upper regions of life, among those who had been badly educated, and have nothing to do; and, by a celebrated writer, they are admirably hit off in the following pictorial sketch of Vetusta:

"She is to be again dressed fine, and keep her visiting day; again to change the color of her clothes, again to have a new head, and again to put patches on her face. She is again to see who acts best at the play house, and who sings finest at the opera. She is again to make ten visits in a day, and be ten times in a day trying to talk artfully, easily, and politely, about nothing. She is again to be delighted with some new fashion, and again angry at the change of some old one. She is again to be at cards and gaming at midnight, and again in bed at noon. She is to be again pleased with hypocritical compliments, and again disturbed at imaginary affronts. She is to be again pleased at her good luck at gaming, and again tormented with the loss of her money. She is again to prepare herself for a birth night, and again to see the town full of company. She is again to hear the cabals and intrigues of the town; again to have secret intelligence of private amours, and early notices of marriages, quarrels, and partings.'

Such is the description of an elderly fashionable lady, of the London stamp; a description, which, under the fictitious name of a single individual, was meant to embrace a large class.

Nor is it only in the regions of fashion and high life, that frivolity of character is seen; though, there, it has the strongest stimulants and the most ample means of displaying itself. Fortunate are they, on whom is imposed the salutary necessity of doing something valuable with their existence; whose daily occupations, as well as worldly circumstances, withhold them from an imitation of those called the great, but who, by their frivolous pursuits, render themselves least among the little.

A flighty, frivolous turn of mind, is owing partly to nature, partly to education, and partly to habit.

Every body that is observant, must have seen that some children are more sedate, and others more volatile; and that the latter, during their infantile years, are peculiarly pleasing for their pert vivacity. They perform childish things in the most engaging manner. And not in childhood only do they gratify and please; in the following stage of early youth there is a charm

in the vivaciousness of their temper, which we are apt to mistake for the bud of genius. But the expectation is often disappointed at the period of mature age. There is then found a gay surface, but no depth; a high fed fancy, but a barren understanding and feeble judgment. The Man, even the aged Man, is still as volatile, still as fond of little sports and of little things, still as boyish, as when he was a boy.

The fruit of age generally accords with the education of childhood. Education goes far, very far, in determining and fixing characters; and of none more than of young minds remarkably vivacious. Though a more than ordinary degree of vivacity, in the early years of life, affords no sure promise of superior strength of understanding, so neither is it to be interpreted on the other hand, as a sign that the understanding will be weak; for it sometimes is an accompaniment of great and shining parts. But in either case, the management of children of this description is a matter of peculiar delicacy. If prudent care be taken to curb and regulate, without extinguishing, the vivacity of their tempers; if their attention be directed betimes to things most important and serious; if the solid parts of education be well wrought into their minds:-in such cases, although at last they should prove to be not above mediocrity, yet they would stand a fair chance of being not only useful, but peculiarly agreeable, members of the community. Contrarywise, if their education be conducted, as too often it happens, in a manner calculated to nourish and confirm the volatile bias of their nature, there will be very little hope of their future respectability or usefulness. For should they have bright talents, the chances are ten to one that they will misemploy them. Or, on the other hand, if their understandings prove but slender, they will be always children, in manners and behaviour; pert, lively, frolicksome children, with hoary heads, and spectacles on the nose.

"Habit is second nature." Especially, when habit is superadded to the strong bias of nature, it is the hardest thing in the world to overcome it. And thus it happens that children of more than common vivacity of temper, so seldom learn to "put away childish things,"

Per

when they become full grown men and women. mitted to spend their early days in little else but trifles, the habit of trifling becomes firmly rooted, and triflers they continue to be throughout the whole of their lives. The same volatileness, which made them so pleasing in their childhood, renders them worthless, and of small repute, ever after.

When we want diversion we send for you, but when we want business done we send for him-was the plainhearted reply of Governor Dinwiddie to a jocund young Virginian, who was complaining, at the Governor's table, of his committing an important trust to young George Washington, in preference to himself.

This anecdote, in which I give the sense, without repeating the express words of my author, is a teaching one.-Would that it may be kept in remembrance by our American youth!

CHAP. LX.

Of the natural and the moral heart.

«Thine own things, and such as are grown up with thee, thou canst not know."

To obtain conviction of the truth of this observation of Esdras the Jewish Sage, we need look only to that part of our own system called the Heart. Both the material and the moral heart of man are of mysterious and wonderful construction; too deep to be fathomed by the line of philosophy, and too intricate to be explored by human ken.

In regard to the material heart, as stated in Keil's Anatomy, "each ventricle of the heart will at least contain one ounce of blood. The heart contracts four thousand times in one hour: from which it follows, that there passes through the heart, every hour, four thousand ounces, or three hundred and fifty pounds of blood. Now the whole mass of blood (in a commonsized human body) is said to be about twenty-five