adds Plato, "will in general beget children like to themselves ;" and Euripides propounded the same sentiment when he wrote, "Noble children spring from noble fathers; and the children of the bad are like in nature to their parents."

The folly of pride in birth is at the same time justly ridiculed by Menander, and is blamed by Plato, and whilst the excesses of democracy are exposed, the curse of tyranny is even still more strongly denounced. Human wisdom is necessarily imperfect, and whilst we can, like the wise spoken of by Sophocles, gather wisdom from the past, we still find many propositions which are either unsound when taken alone, or which admit of a converse. Thus, for example, we are told by Eschylus that prosperity is a shadow-a passing light, and by Seneca that "he leans on a feeble reed who takes pleasure in what is external to himself." "Prosperity is a feeble reed," says also a French writer. Yet, whilst adversity is justly said by Menander to be sometimes the cause of good, none applaud it. Thucydides proclaimed it to be a serious calamity, and Philemon deemed it pleasant to think on only when it is past. So also of riches. That such are mere vanity, and not essential to happiness, has been propounded by Greeks, by Jews, by Latins, and by all moderns, yet Hesiod has the courage to say, "Money is life to us wretched mortals,” and throughout the Old Testament honour will be found allied to riches.

The comparative advantages of humble life and seclusion, and of worldly strife and activity, have in the same way been set forth in contrast by the poets and moralists of all ages. "Men are taught virtue and a love of independence," says Menander, "by living in the country;" and he adds elsewhere: "The life of those who live in the country possesses pleasures, comforting the sorrows and annoyances of man with hope." One of perhaps the finest passages in Euripides is where he contrasts a royal with a humble life, and in which occur the lines, "Be mine the humble blessings of private life rather than be a king," and "Be mine a modest mean that knows not care." And the same poet wrote:

But then, again, none are more severe upon an idle, unprofitable life than the ancients. "A miserable wretch, a useless being on earth," apostrophises Menander, " acknowledging that he has been brought up in vain." "It is better," wrote Herodotus, "by a noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils which we anticipate, than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen." "Nature," wrote Longinus, never meant man to be a low, grovelling creature, but placing him in the world, as in a wide and crowded theatre, intended that he should be the spectator of her mighty works, giving him an eager desire for every honourable pursuit. From the first moment of his birth, she implanted in his soul an inextinguishable love for all that is good and noble, and a constant longing to approach nearer to the Divine nature." Many passages to the same effect be found among the Romans and the moderns, but none more eloquent or more to the point.

may

The advantages and disadvantages of friendship are contrasted in a similar way, as are also those of celibacy and of married life. Aristotle quotes Hesiod as being in the right when he says, "First house, then wife, then oxen for a plough." "To many, a wife," says Menander, "if we regard the truth, is an evil, but it is a necessary evil." The Greeks, as we noticed when speaking of the Anthologists, were indeed by no means complimentary to the sex. Aristophanes apostrophised women as arch deceivers, and Euripides exclaims:

See what a faithless race you women are!
In all that hath been done you have a part.

Eschylus is still more defiant :

:

Nor in misfortune, nor in dear success,
Be woman my associate if her
power
Bears sway, her insolence execeds all bounds
But if she fears, woe to that house and city!

But then, again, some of the finest passages in the father of the Athenian drama-Eschylus-and in their greatest tragic poet-Euripides-are written in favour of woman.

Can heaven's fair beam show a fond wife a sight
More grateful than her husband from his wars
Return'd with glory, when she opes the gate,
And springs to welcome him?

Says the one; and the other sums up :

To be brief,

If any in past times with severe taunts
Have censured women, if now any vents
His obloquies, or shall hereafter vent,
In one brief sentence I comprise the whole.

It is a breed, not all th' extended earth,

Nor the sea's ample depths produce the like;

This truth he feels the most who knows them best.

The same inconsistencies are to be met with upon this delicate subject in poets and philosophers of all times, and even in the writings of the same authors. The "thoughts" of the Italians and French, especially, afford amusing examples. It is only recently that we heard the origin of the proverb, "Quem Jupiter (or Deus) vult perdere, prius dementat," disputed. Dr. Ramage gives it in the Latin as a proverb; but it appears to have been also such even in the time of Euripides, in whom we find, "When God is contriving misfortunes for man, He first deprives him of his reason." (See Duport's Gnomologia Homerica, p. 282. Cantab., 1660.) Athenagoras also quotes Greek lines, and renders them in Latin (p. 121. Oxon., 1682).

The ancients had a curious way of exalting moderation, by asserting that half is better than the whole. Hesiod, for example, wrote: Fools, blind to truth! nor knows their erring soul How much the half is better than the whole.

Plato quotes the passage with approval, and it has, indeed, much wisdom. to recommend it. We say wisdom, but even upon that point the same contrariety of opinion ("Everything is mere opinion," said Marcus Antoninus) exists as upon all other matters. Euripides wrote:

Of honour and of wisdom, if alike,

All judged, nor contest nor debate would rise

'Mongst men; but 'tis not so; the names they use
In common; but each gives his sense to them.

The Greeks conceived, slyly enough, that what is one man's doxa, is another man's heterodoxa; and what is one man's wisdom, is another's folly. "To instruct the wise in wisdom," they said, "argues weakness." I have not now first learn'd that all

The affairs of mortal men are a mere shadow;
Nor would I fear to say that those who most
Boast of their wisdom and their deep research,
The widest in the paths of folly stray:
No mortal man is happy; if the tide
Of wealth flows in upon him, one may be
More fortunate than others, happy never.

This from Euripides; but the pleasantest conceit regarding wisdom is that which avers that it is best judged of by the event:

Had I succeeded well,

I had been reckon'd 'mongst the wise: our minds
Are so disposed to judge from the event.

"Successful crime," wrote Seneca, "is dignified with the name of virtue; the good become the slaves of the impious; might makes right; fear silences the power of the laws." La Bruyère also repeated: "Successful crimes are praised very much like virtue itself, and good fortune is not far from occupying the place of the whole cycle of virtues. It must be an atrocious act, a base and hateful deed, which success would not be able to justify." La Rochefoucauld also said: "Some crimes become innocent, and even glorious, by their splendour, number, and enormity hence public robbery is regarded as proofs of great ability, and to seize provinces unjustly is called making conquests."

Of happiness, which was declared by Aristotle to depend on virtue and wisdom, two principles upon the nature of which men are not at all agreed, it was also justly remarked that "men cannot agree as to its true nature, and the vulgar by no means hold the same opinion respecting it with the educated; for some are inclined to apply it only to what is distinct and marked in its essence, such as pleasure, wealth, or honour each man thinking differently of it from his neighbours, and often the same person entertains different opinions respecting it at different times." "His happiness," wrote Euripides, "I praise, whose life with blessings cheers each joyful day." "Who knows with wisdom to enjoy what Heaven bestows," said Horace. Pliny deemed that man happiest "who lived in the conscious anticipation of honest fame and the glorious figure he shall make in the eyes of posterity." Vanity of vanities!

And those to whom is given

Calmly the course of mortal life to pass,

By no affliction sunk, pronounce we blest,

Euripides also propounded; but Herodotus spoke with greater depth of wisdom when he said to Croesus, "Call no man happy till you know the end of his life; up to that moment he can only be called fortunate."

The fair seeming bliss of mortal man

Deserves not admiration ere we see

His death; so suddenly his fortunes change,

also said the tragic poet of Athens; and Sophocles, his almost equally celebrated contemporary, wrote:

Of old this saying hath 'mongst men been famed,
That of man's life, till death hath closed the scene,
We know not to decide, to term it blest,

Or wretched.

Sophocles here designates that wisdom as "old," which we have seen was adopted by three of the master-spirits living in the fifth century before Christ. Truly may we say with Solomon and Marcus Antoninus, that there is nothing new under the sun.

Enough has been said to show that profit, learning, and wisdom are to be derived from the perusal of Dr. Ramage's delightful volumes. Wandering as they do over the whole field of human intelligence, it would be a pleasant task to cull flowers from them all the summer long-and the summer of intellectual enjoyment knows happily no winter-but we must leave to others to partake of those pleasures, which, derived from such pure sources, have in them no alloy.

FINIS CORONAT OPUS.

WHERE hurls the angry surge its storm of spray
O'er the lone strand, Science, with sleepless eye,
Had year-long vigil kept, untiringly,

Careful to note the feeble-flickering ray.
Nor seldom, as the slow months wore away,
In fitful-flashing sort would seem to fly
Vague message-words of incoherency
From midmost ocean to Valentia's bay.
But lo! the wavering flame shows fix'd and bright,
The silent wire hath sudden language found!
Hope's feeble ray is quench'd in Joy's full light,
The Old and New a twofold link hath bound!

Science hath triumph'd in the hard-won fight,

And "all-inventive man" once more is victor crown'd.

SNOWED UP.

BY MRS. BUSHBY.

IX.

THE SPIRIT'S PROPHECY.

I.

WOUNDED AT THE BATTLE OF BOCACHICA.

WAR, with all its attendant horrors and miseries, was still going on in what had been the Spanish possessions in South America and Mexico; and, so far from slackening in its fury, it seemed to acquire fresh vigour after every battle lost or won by either side. The prolonged contest between the royalists and the patriots had now assumed the name of "The war of death," for the prisoners taken on either side were most frequently shot.

The Spaniards, not being able to subdue Venezuela with regular troops, determined to raise a rebellion among the slaves. For this purpose they sent emissaries among them, who, by exciting their worst passions, and making them false promises, induced them to espouse the cause of Spain, and gathered a considerable body of them. Many engagements took place, and the proceedings of the Spaniards, assisted by the slaves, were marked with the most odious cruelty. Scenes occurred too horrible to relate, and atrocities were committed that would have disgraced the most barbaric ages of the world. What else could be expected in a coalition between the bloodthirsty Spaniards and the low, ignorant, savage mob?

Colonel, or rather General Mentilla, for he had been promoted to that rank, was engaged in the battle of Bocachica, in which the royalists were repulsed. He performed prodigies of valour on that day, and won almost as much renown as his friend General Bolivar, who gained a similar advantage over the royalist troops, about the same time, at San Mateo. These two victories went far towards recovering the independence of South America.

Don Alonzo Alvaez also led several brilliant charges against the enemy at Bocachica, but he was not with Mentilla, being under the command of another distinguished patriot officer, General Marino.

Fortune had favoured General Mentilla almost throughout the day, but he was not fated to leave the battle-field unscathed. Towards the close of the engagement, when the Spaniards were flying in all directions, leaving behind them their dying and their dead, General Mentilla was wounded, and had to be removed in a rough litter from the scene of carnage.

The camp of the patriots had been pitched at no great distance from Bocachica, and therefore the general was carried to his own tent, where one or two English surgeons attached to the patriot army speedily attended him.

As the wounded man was brought into his tent, a low, smothered cry