presses of the nineteenth century, some works which will live and be admired in the twentieth. Among these is the one before us. Its author seems to possess something of the spirit of those literary giants of "olden time;" he has laboured in the depths and brought up the shining ore, he has gathered the diamonds heaped upon the fertile plains of Balaghaut and collected the scattered gems of Zahara, he has searched the Book of Nature and found the precious pearl,-these he has melted down in his own furnace. Especially has he conversed with the great Hebrew monarch, and plucked his golden fruit to engraft them with the pencil on his canvass. These give value to the work; they show us "the wise course to steer," teach us that "virtue alone is happiness below," and turn our thoughts to the bright Source of all.

How charming is divine Philosophy!

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,

Where no crude surfeit reigns.*

He has gathered up the incense of wisdom and love breathed from the lips of the gifted and the true, and given

to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.
e.†

With a word of encouragement, he confirms a sublime yet undecided purpose, with a word of sympathy, he opens a new vista to the desolate, and with a word of truth, he fires a man of action to a noble deed. "All the enchantments of fancy, and all the cogency of argument, are employed to recommend to the reader his real interest, the care of pleasing the Author of his being. Truth wears a thousand dresses, and in all is pleasing." Like that of other good books, its language is instructive and touches us by its assimilation with our conscious life; like that of nature,

*MILTON'S Comus.

+SHAKSPEARE.

JOHNSON on Addison.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS.

it is beautiful and sublime; like conversation, it is personal and sympathetic,-alive with the glow of fancy and enriched by wisdom, it plainly shows us what we are and what we should be. Our conclusion shall be in the words of CH. HARVIE, in his verses to the reader of "Walton:"

First mark the title well; my friend that gave it
Has made it good, this book deserves to have it:
For he that views it with judicious looks,
Shall find it full of art, baits, lines, and hooks.
Here sits in secret blest theology,

Waited upon by grave philosophy

Both natural and moral, history

Deck'd and adorn'd with flowers of poetry,
The matter and expression striving which
Shall most excel in worth.

J. O.

Prouerbial Philosophy.

(FIRST SERIES.)

Prefatory.

Thoughts that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner chambers, The sober children of reason, or desultory train of fancy;

Clear running wine of conviction, with the scum and the lees of specula

tion;

Corn from the sheaves of science, with stubble from mine own garner: Searchings after Truth, that have tracked her secret lodes,

And come up again to the surface-world, with a knowledge grounded deeper;

Arguments of high scope, that have soared to the keystone of heaven, And thence have swooped to their certain mark, as the falcon to its

quarry;

The fruits I have gathered of prudence, the ripened harvest of my musings, These commend I unto thee, O docile scholar of Wisdom,

These I give to thy gentle heart, thou lover of the right.

What, though a guilty man renew that hallowed theme,

And strike with feebler hand the harp of Sirach's son?1

What, though a youthful tongue take up that ancient parable,
And utter faintly forth dark sayings as of old?

Sweet is the virgin honey, though the wild bee have stored it in a reed,
And bright the jewelled band, that circleth an Ethiop's arm;
Pure are the grains of gold in the turbid stream of Ganges,
And fair the living flowers, that spring from the dull cold sod.
Wherefore, thou gentle student, bend thine ear to my speech,
For I also am as thou art; our hearts can commune together:
To meanest matters will I stoop, for mean is the lot of mortal;
I will rise to noblest themes, for the soul hath an heritage of glory:
The passions of puny man; the majestic characters of God;

The feverish shadows of time, and the mighty substance of eternity.

Commend thy mind unto candour, and grudge not as though thou hadst a teacher,

Nor scorn angelic Truth for the sake of her evil herald;

Heed not him, but hear his words, and care not whence they come;
The viewless winds might whisper them, the billows roar them forth,
The mean unconscious sedge sigh them in the ear of evening,

Or the mind of pride conceive, and the mouth of folly speak them.
I stand not forth laying hold on spear and buckler,
I come a man of peace, to comfort, not to combat;

Lo now,

With soft persuasive speech to charm thy patient ear,

Giving the hand of fellowship, acknowledging the heart of sympathy:
Let us walk together as friends in the shaded paths of meditation,
Nor Judgment set his seal until he hath poised his balance;
That the chastenings of mild reproof may meet unwitting error,
And Charity not be a stranger at the board that is spread for brothers.

The Words of Wisdom.

Few and precious are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter:

To what shall their rarity be likened? What price shall count their worth? Perfect and much to be desired, and giving joy with riches,

No lovely thing on earth can picture all their beauty.

They be chance pearls, flung among the rocks by the sullen waters of Oblivion,

Which Diligence loveth to gather, and hang around the neck of Memory; They be white-winged seeds of happiness, wafted from the islands of the

blessed,

Which Thought carefully tendeth, in the kindly garden of the heart; They be sproutings of an harvest for eternity, bursting through the tilth of time,

Green promise of the golden wheat, that yieldeth angels' food;

They be drops of the crystal dew, which the wings of seraphs scatter, When on some brighter sabbath, their plumes quiver most with delight: Such, and so precious, are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter.

Yet more, for the half is not said, of their might, and dignity, and value;

For life-giving be they and glorious, redolent of sanctity and heaven:
As the fumes of hallowed incense, that veil the throne of the Most High;
As the beaded bubbles that sparkle on the rim of the cup of immortality;
As wreaths of the rainbow spray, from the pure cataracts of truth:
Such, and so precious, are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter.

Yet once again, loving student, suffer the praises of thy teacher,
For verily the sun of the mind, and the life of the heart is Wisdom:
She is pure and full of light, crowning grey hairs with lustre,
And kindling the eye of youth with a fire not its own;