ALL KNOWLEDGE IS VALUABLE.

As error may thus lead to truth, and as there is this union between different sciences, it seems to follow that all knowledge is valuable, and that a well ordered mind, may out of every evil, extract some good, with no other chemistry than wisdom and serenity.

There is an interesting illustration of this position in a sermon published by Dr. Ramsden, assistant professor of divinity at Cambridge, who, in shewing the tendency of all knowledge to form the heart of a nation, says:

"We will venture to say how in the mercy of God to man, this heart comes to a nation, and how its exercise or affection appears. It comes by priests, by lawgivers, by philosophers, by schools, by education, by the nurse's care, the mother's anxiety, the father's severe brow. It comes by letters, by science, by every art, by sculpture, painting, and poetry; by the song on war, on peace, on domestic virtue, on a beloved and magnanimous king; by the Iliad, by the Odyssey, by tragedy, by comedy. It comes by sympathy, by love, by the marriage union, by friendship, generosity, meekness, temperance, by virtue, and example of virtue. It comes by sentiments of chivalry, by romance, by music, by decorations and magnificence of building, by the culture of the body, by comfortable clothing, by fashions in dress, by luxury and commerce. It comes by the severity; the melancholy, the benignity of the countenance; by rules of politeness, ceremonies, formalities, solemnities. It comes by rites attendant on law, by religion; by the oath of office, by the venerable assembly, by the judge's procession and trumpets, by the disgrace and punishment of crimes; by public fasts, public prayer, by meditation, by the bible, by the consecration of churches, by the sacred festival, by the cathedral's gloom and choir. Whence the heart of a nation comes, we have, perhaps, sufficiently explained. And it must appear to what most awful obligation and duty we hold all those from whom this heart takes its nature and shape, our king, our princes, our nobles, all who wear the badge of office or honour; all priests, judges, senators pleaders, interpretors of law, all instructors of youth, all seminaries of education, all parents, all learned men, all professors of science and art, all teachers of manners. Upon them depends the fashion of the nation's heart. By them is it to be chastised, refined and purified. By them is

the state to lose the character and title of the beast of prey. By them are the iron scales to fall off, and a skin of youth, beauty, freshness, and polish, to come upon it. By them it is to be made so tame and gentle as that a child may lead it.”

If there is any truth in these observations, there results a rule of Lord Bacon's of considerable importance. Let not the mind be fixed; but kept open to receive continual amendment, that mind alone being in a perfect state for the acquisition of knowledge which is capable at any time to acquire any sort of knowledge; the defects of the understanding from this cause, being an inability at particular times, to acquire knowledge; or an inability to acquire particular sorts of knowledge. He says, "Certainly custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years; this we call education, which is in effect but an early custom. So we see in languages, the tongue is more pliant to all expressions and sounds; the joints are more supple to all feats of activity and motions in youth than afterwards: for it is true, that late learners cannot so well take the ply, except it be in some minds that have not suffered themselves to fix, but they kept their minds open and prepared to receive continual amendment, which is exceeding rare."

EXCESSIVE ATTACHMENT TO PARTICULAR STUDIES.

"That different men are attached to different studies is a truth too obvious to require illustration. 'Attachment to particular studies is,' says Lord Bacon, an idol of the understanding:' 'men,' he says, 6 are fond of particular sciences and studies, either because they believe themselves the authors and inventors thereof, or because they have bestowed much pains upon them, and principally applied themselves thereto.'"

NOTE Y.-Text 318.

Pleasures of Imagination.

I. The mind aspires to perfection.

THS world is inferior to the soul, by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety than can be found in the nature of things. BACON.

The soul during her confinement within this prison of the body, is doomed by fate to undergo a severe penance. For

her native seat is in heaven; and it is with reluctance that she is forced down from those celestial mansions into these lower regions, where all is foreign and repugnant to her divine nature. But the gods, I am persuaded, have thus widely disseminated immortal spirits, and clothed them with human i odies, that there might be a race of intelligent creatures, not only to have dominion over this our earth, but to contemplate the host of heaven, and imitate in their moral conduct the same beautiful order and uniformity, so conspicuous in those splendid orbs. CICERO.

This purifying of wit, this inriching of memory, ennobling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call learning, under what name soever it come forth, or to what immediate end soever it be directed, the final end is to lead and draw us to as high a perfection, as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clay-lodgings, can be capable of. Some give themselves to astronomy; some to be natural and supernatural philosophers; some an admirable delight drew to music; and some the certainty of demonstration to the mathematics; but all, one and other, having this scope to know, and by knowledge to lift up the mind from the dungeon of the body, to the enjoying his own divine essence. SIR PHILIP SYDNEY.

If there be a radical propensity in our nature to do that which is wrong, there is on the other hand a counteracting power within it, or an impulse, by means of the action of the Divine spirit upon our minds, which urges us to do that which is right. If the voice of temptation, clothed in musical and seducing accents, charms us one way, the voice of holiness speaking to us from within in a solemn and power ul manner, commands us another. Does one man obtain a victory over his corrupt affections? an immediate perception of pleasure, like the feeling of a reward divinely conferred upon him, is noticed. Does another fall prostrate beneath their power? a painful feeling, and such as pronounces to him the sentence of reproof and punishment is found to follow.

Whatever the Deity may have bestowed upon me in other respects, he has certainly inspired me, if any ever were inspired, with a passion for the good and fair. Nor did Ceres, according to the fable, ever seek her daughter Proserpine with such unceasing solicitude, as I have sought this perfect model of the beautiful in all the forms and appearances of things I am wont, day and night, to continue my search; and I follow in the way in which you go before.

MILTON'S LETTER TO DEODATI.

The highborn soul

Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing

Beneath its native quarry. Tir'd of earth

And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft. AKENSIDE.

Our hearts ne'er bow but to superior worth,

Nor ever fail of their allegiance there.

Though I have lost

Much lustre of my native brightness-lost
To be beloved of God-I have not lost

To love, at least contemplate and admire,
What I see excellent in good, or fair,

Or virtuous.

YOUNG.

MILTON.

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures:

In spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

KEATS.

2. Does not the mind delight in the Invisible and the Ob

scure?

See ante pages 345, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

Ask the faithful youth,

Why the cold urn of her whom long he loved
So often fills his arms; so often draws

His lonely footsteps at the silent hour,

Το

pay the mournful tribute of his tears?
Oh! he will tell thee, that the wealth of worlds,
Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego

That sacred hour, when, stealing from the noise
Of care and envy, sweet remembrance sooths
With virtue's kindest looks his aching breast,
And turns his tears to rapture.

3. Does not the Mind delight in its creative Powers—of Imitation, of Extension,-of Personification,-of Combination, &c. &c.?

Do not the pleasures of imagination enable the mind to indulge its delight in aspiring to perfection?

In regions mild of calm and serene air,

Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot,

Which men call earth, and with low thoughted care

Confined, and pestered in this pinfold here.

Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being, &c.

Do not the pleasures of imagination enable the mind to indulge its love of the invisible, and its creative powers?

There is a spirit within us, which arrays
The thing we doat upon with colourings
Richer than roses-brighter than the beams
Of the clear sun at morning, when he flings
His shower of light upon the peach, or plays
With the green leaves of June, and strives to dart
Into some great forest's heart,

And scare the Sylvan from voluptuous dreams.
BARRY CORNWALL.

ON THE NIGHTINGALE.

The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn.

SATURN.

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head

KEATS.

Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.

It is a stormy night, and the wild sea,
That sounds for ever, now upon the beach
Is pouring all its power. Each af er each,
The hurrying waves cry out rejoicingly,

KEATS.

And, crowding onwards, seem as they would reach
The height I tread upon. The winds are high,

And the quick lightnings shoot along the sky,
At intervals. It is an hour to teach

Vain man his insignificance; and yet,

Though all the elements in their might have met,