be warm and ready for the expected brood; and that very brood, so carefully lodged and so tenderly watched, he shall dash to the ground without pity, for he is without knowledge. Not so the poet:

Thy wee-bit housie now in ruin,

Its silly wa's the winds are strewin!
An' naething now to build a new one,
O' foggage green!

And bleak December's winds ensuin!

Baith snell and keen.

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,

An' weary winter comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash, the cruel coulter past

Out thro' thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee many a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch caulda!

Not so the prophet! who describes the highest

a Robert Burns.-" To a Mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough."

intelligence, as caring for the cattle in Nineveh, and not only preserving his people in the desert, but gently leading the kids that were with young. 3. It is an assured truth which is contained in these

verses:

Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes

Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.

It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men's minds. But indeed the accent had need be upon fideliter; for a little superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to accept of nothing until it is examined and trieda.

4. Si Descartes eut quelques foiblesses de l'humanité, il eut aussi les principales vertus du philosophe. Sobre, tempérant, ami de la liberté et de

a Bacon.

la retraite, reconnoissant, libéral, sensible à l'amitié, tendre, compatissant, il ne connoissoit que les passions douces et savoit résister aux violentes. Quand on me fait offense, disoit-il, je tâche d'élever mon ame si haut, que l'offense ne parvienne pas jusqu'à elle. L'ambition ne l'agita pas plus que la ven

geance.

Il disoit, comme Ovide: Vivre caché, c'est vivre heureux.-Newton étoit doux, tranquille, modeste, simple, affable, toujours de niveau avec tout le monde, ne se démentit point pendant le cours de sa longue et brillante carriere. Il auroit mieux aimé être inconnu, que de voir le calme de sa vie troublé par ces orages litteraires, que l'esprit et la science attirent à ceux qui cherchent trop la gloire. Je me reprocherois, disoit-il, mon imprudence, de perdre une chose aussi réelle que le repos, pour courir après une ombre.

5. I thank God, amongst those millions of vices I do inherit and hold from Adam, I have escaped one, and that a mortal enemy to charity, the first and father sin, not only of man, but of the devil,

pride; a vice whose name is comprehended in a monosyllable, but in its nature not circumscribed with a world; I have escaped it in a condition that can hardly avoid it: Those petty acquisitions and reputed perfections that advance and elevate the conceits of other men, add no feathers unto mine. I have seen a grammarian tower and plume himself over a single line in Horace, and show more pride in the construction of one ode, than the author in the composure of the whole book. For my own part, besides the jargon and patois of several provinces, I understand no less than six languages; yet I protest I have no higher conceit of myself, than had our fathers before the confusion of Babel, when there was but one language in the world, and none to boast himself either linguist or critick. I have not only seen several countries, beheld the nature of their climes, the chorography of their provinces, topography of their cities, but understood their several laws, customs and policies; yet cannot all this perswade the dulness of my spirit unto such an opi

nion of myself, as I behold in nimbler and conceited heads that never looked a degree beyond their nests. I know the names and somewhat more of all the constellations in my horizon; yet I have seen a prating mariner, that could only name the pointers and the north-star, out-talk me, and conceit himself a whole sphere above mea.

6. All the world, all that we are and all that we have, our bodies and our souls, our actions and our sufferings, our conditions at home, our accidents abroad, our many sins and our seldom virtues, are as so many arguments to make our souls dwell low in the deep valleys of humility.

KNOWLEDGE PROMOTES ORDER.

1. Wisdom is glorious, and never fadeth away: yea, she is easily seen of them that love her, and found of such as seek her. She preventeth them b Bishop Taylor.

a Sir T. Browne.