LXXVI.—THOUGHTS ON BOOKS.

1. OBLIGATIONS TO LITERATURE.-I will here place on record my own obligations to literature-a debt so immense as not to be canceled, like that of nature, by death itself. I owe to it something more than my earthly welfare. Adrift early in life upon the great waters, as pilotless as Wordsworth's blind boy afloat in the turtle-shell, if I did not come to shipwreck it was that, in default of paternal or fraternal guidance, I was rescued, like the "ancient mariner," by guardian spirits, "each one a lovely light," who stood as beacons to my course. Infirm health and a natural love of reading happily threw me, instead of into worse society, into the company of poets, philosophers and sages, to me good angels and ministers of grace. From these silent instructors—who often do more than fathers, and always more than godfathers, for our temporal and spiritual interests from these mild monitors-no importunate tutors, teasing mentors, moral taskmasters, obtrusive advisers, harsh censors or wearisome lecturers, but delightful associates -I learned something of the divine, and more of the human, religion.

They were my interpreters in the house beautiful of God, and my guide among the delectable mountains of nature. They reformed my prejudices, chastened my passions, tempered my heart, purified my tastes, elevated my mind and directed my aspirations. I was lost in a chaos of undigested problems, false theories, crude fancies, obscure impulses, bewildering doubts, when these bright intelligences called my mental world out of darkness like a new creation, and gave it "two great lights," Hope and Memory—the past for a moon and the future for a sun. My books kept me from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, the saloon. The closet associate of Pope and Addison, the mind accustomed to the noble though silent discourse of Shakspeare and Milton, will hardly seek or put up with low company.

"Hence have I genial seasons; hence have I

Smooth passions, smooth discourse and joyous thoughts;

And thus from day to day my little boat
Rocks in its harbor, lodging peaceably.
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise-
The poets-who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!
Oh might my name be numbered among theirs,

How gladly would I end my mortal days!”—THOMAS HOOD.

2. WORTH OF BOOKS.-It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in the reach of all. In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books! They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levelers. They give to all who will faithfully use them the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am. No matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling. If the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof-if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of paradise, and Shakspeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom--I shall not pine for intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live.- Channing.

3. A TASTE FOR READING.-Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstance, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me during life and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. Give a man this taste and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history-with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest and the purest characters

who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him.-Sir John Herschel.

4. READING MAY BE ABUSED.-A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading. Too much overcharges nature and turns more into disease than nourishment. It is thought and digestion which make books serviceable and give health and vigor to the mind. Better read not at all than read bad, unprofitable books. "There are those persons," says Locke, "who are very assiduous in reading, and yet do not much advance their knowledge by it. They are delighted with the stories that are told, and perhaps can tell them again, for they make all they read nothing but history to themselves, but not reflecting on it, not making to themselves observations from what they read, they are very little improved by all that crowd of particulars that either pass through or lodge themselves in their understandings. They dream on in a constant course of reading and cramming themselves, but, not digesting anything, it produces nothing but a heap of crudities."

5. INSPIRING WORDS.-A good book is often the best urn of a life, enshrining the best thoughts of which that life was capable, for the world of a man's life is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words and golden thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, become our abiding companions and comforters. "They are never alone," said Sir Philip Sydney, "that are accompanied by noble thoughts." The good and true thought may in time of temptation be as an angel of mercy purifying and guarding the soul. It also may issue in action, for good words may be the inspiration of good works. Books have an element of immortality. They are by far the most lasting product of human effort. Temples crumble into ruin, pictures and statues decay, but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to-day as when they first passed through their authors' mind ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever

from the printed page. The only effect of time has been tc sift and winnow out the bad products, for nothing in literature can long survive but what is really good.

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SELECT ETYMOLOGIES.-Beacon: A. S. beac'en, a sign, a nod; h., beck, beckon. Blazon: A. S. blæse, a flame. . . . Burden: A. S. byrthan; fr. Ger. beran, to bear. Cancel: L. cancel'lo, cancella'tum, to lattice; fr. cancel'li, lattice-work, cross-bars; h., to erase or deface writing by crossing it. . . . Delectable: L. delectab'ilis, delightful. . . . Denizen: old F. donaison, a gift; fr. L. dona'tio, a donation, because the denizen was made a subject, ex donatio'ne re'gis, from the grant of the king. . . . Interpret: L. inter'pretor, I explain; fr. inter-pres, an intermediate agent between two parties. Issue: L. ex'o, ex'itum, to go out; fr. ex and e'o, it'um, to go; h., amb-ient (amb = am'bi, about), amb-ition (orig., a going around for votes), circ-uit, con-com-itant, ex-it, im-per-ishable, in-itial, initiate, in-trans-itive (lit., not going over), ob-it (L. ob'eo, I go against, I go to mect; h., to meet death), ob-ituary, per-ish (L. per'eo, per'itum, to go or run through, to come to nothing), preter-ite, sed-ition (sed =se, aside, it'io, a going), trance, trans-ient, trans-it (L. trans'eo, trans'itum, to pass over), trans-ition, trans-ilory, etc. . . . Juxta-position: fr. L. jux'ta, near, and posi'tio, position. . . . Mentor: the name of a wise Greek; h., a faithful monitor. Saloon: F. salon, a large hall. . . . Tutor: L.; fr. tu'e-or, tu'itus, to see or perceive, to protect; h., in-tuitive, tuition, tutelage, tutelary, etc.

GREAT MEN.

GREAT men were all great workers in their time,
Steadfast in purpose, to their calling true,
Keeping with single aim the end in view,
Giving their youthful days and manhood's prime
To ceaseless toil: matin and midnight chime
Often upon their willing labors drew;

In suffering schooled, their souls endurance knew,
And over difficulties rose sublime.

Genius alone can never make one great:
There must be industry to second skill,
Faith, tireless perseverance, strength of will,

Ere triumph and success upon thee wait.
Wouldst thou ascend Fame's rugged, frowning steep?
It must be thine to toil while others sleep.

LXXVII.—ADDRESS TO A WILD DEER.

By the WEATHER-GLEAM the poet means a sudden shoot of light in the direction from which the wind blows. In line 7 BORNE is not a perfect rhyme to MORN; in borne o is long as in bore; in morn it has the sound of o in nor. In lines 33, 34, SHONE should be pronounced shon, GONE, gon. The unaccented vowel is sounded in ves'sel, but not in heav'en.

I.

MAGNIFICENT creature! so stately and bright!
In the pride of thy spirit pursuing thy flight;
For what hath the child of the desert to dread,
Wafting up his own mountains that far-beaming head,
Or borne like a whirlwind down, down on the vale?
Hail, king of the wild and the beautiful, hail!
Hail, idol divine, whom Nature hath borne

O'er a hundred hill-tops since the mists of the morn!
Whom the pilgrim, lone wandering on mountain and moor,
As the vision glides by him may blameless adore;

For the joy of the happy, the strength of the free,
Are spread in a garment of glory o'er thee!

II.

Up, up to yon cliff, like a king to the throne,
O'er the black silent forest piled lofty and lone!
A throne which the eagle is glad to resign
Unto footsteps so fleet and so fearless as thine.

There the bright heather springs up in love of thy breast;
Lo! the clouds in the depths of the sky are at rest,
And the race of the wild winds is o'er on the hill-
In the hush of the mountains, ye antlers, lie still;
For your branches now toss in the storm of delight
Like the arms of the pine on yon shelterless height.
One moment, thou bright apparition, delay!
Then melt o'er the crags like the sun from the day.

III.

Aloft on the weather-gleam, scorning the earth,
The wild spirit hung in majestical mirth;