Chesterfield.-Pray assist me. Chatham.-Education and grammar are surely the two driest subjects on which a conversation can turn: yet, if the ground is not promiscuously sown, if what ought to be clear is not covered, if what ought to be covered is not bare, and, above all, if the plants are choice ones, we may spend a few moments on it not unpleasantly. It appears then to me, that elegance in prose composition is mainly this: a just admission of topics and of words; neither too many nor too few of either; enough of sweetness in the sound to induce us to enter and sit still; enough of illustrations and reflection to change the posture of our minds when they would tire; and enough of sound matter in the complex to repay us for our attendance. I could perhaps be more logical in my definition, and more concise; but am I at all erroneous? Chesterfield. I see not that you are. Chatham.-My ear is well satisfied with Locke; I find nothing idle or redundant in him. Chesterfield. But, in the opinion of you graver men, would not some of his principles lead too far? Chatham.-The danger is that few will be led by them far enough: most who begin with him stop short, and, pretending to find pebbles in their shoes, throw themselves down upon the ground and complain of their guide. Chesterfield.What then can be the reason why Plato,1 so much less intelligible, is so much more quoted and applauded? Chatham.-The difficulties we never try are no difficulties to us. Those who are upon the summit of a mountain know in some measure its altitude, by comparing it with all objects around; but those who stand at the bottom and never mounted it, can compare it with few only, and with those imperfectly. Until a short time ago I could have conversed more fluently about Plato than I can at present: I had read all the titles to his dialogues and several scraps of commentary; these I 1 An illustrious Greek philosopher, born at Athens B. C. 429; died B.C. 347. have now forgotten, and am indebted to long attacks of the gout for what I have acquired instead. Chesterfield.-A very severe schoolmaster! allows a long vacation. I hope he Chatham.-Severe he is indeed, and although he sets no example of regularity, he exacts few observances and teaches many things. Without him I should have had less patience, less learning, less reflection, less leisure; in short, less of everything but of sleep. Chesterfield.-Locke, from a deficiency of fancy, is not likely to attract so many listeners as Plato. Chatham. And yet occasionally his language is both metaphorical and rich in images. In fact, all our great philosophers have also this property in a wonderful degree. Not to speak of the devotional, in whose writings one might expect it, we find it abundantly in Bacon,1 not sparingly in Hobbes;2 the next to him in range of inquiry and potency of intellect. And what would you think, my lord, if you discovered in the records of Newton3 a sentence in the spirit of Shakspere ?4 Chesterfield. I should look upon it as upon a wonder, not to say a miracle: Newton, like Barrow,5 had no feeling or respect for poetry. Chatham.-His words are these: "I don't know what I may seem to the world; but as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of Truth lay all undiscovered before me." Chesterfield. Surely Nature, who had given him the volumes of her greater mysteries to unseal; who had bent over him and taken his hand, and taught him to decipher the characters of her sacred language; who had lifted up before him her glorious veil, higher than ever yet for mortal, that she might impress her features and her fondness on his heart, threw it back wholly at these words, 1A celebrated statesman and philosopher, born 1561; died 1626. See Reader V. page 238, note. 5 A celebrated mathematician and divine, born 1630; died 1677. and gazed upon him with as much admiration as ever he had gazed upon her.-Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men, Statesmen, &c. By Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864). 1. India, the most valuable dependency of the British crown, is also one of the most interesting portions of the globe. Even some of its physical features are on a scale of unparalleled grandeur. The stupendous mountain. chain along its northern frontier, rising gradually from a plain of inexhaustible fertility, has snowy summits which tower nearly six thousand feet above the loftiest of any other country in either hemisphere; while over the vast expanse of its magnificently diversified surface almost every product of economical value grows indigenously, or, having been introduced, is cultivated with success. 2. Nor are its moral less remarkable than its physical features. In its rugged recesses and jungly forests various tribes, supposed to represent its aboriginal inhabitants, may still be seen in a state bordering on absolute barbarism. The great bulk of the population, however, consists of a race, or rather aggregation of races, who, though far advanced in civilization, at least in the ordinary sense of the term, since they have for ages lived under regular government, dwelt in large and splendid cities, and carried most of the arts of common life to high perfection, are yet the dupes and slaves of a most childish and galling superstition. 3. Hindooism, though little better than a tissue of obscene and monstrous fancies, not only counts its domination by thousands of years, but can boast of having had among its votaries, men who, in the ages in which they lived, extended the boundaries of knowledge, and carried some of the abstrusest of the sciences to a height which they had never reached before. This remarkable combination of pure intellect and grovelling superstition, nowhere displayed so strikingly and unequivocally as in India, gives a peculiar value even to that part of its history which, relating only to its social state, is necessarily the least fruitful in stirring incidents. 4. So long as the leading powers of Europe made India a kind of common battle-field on which they met to contend for supremacy, no one nation could be said to possess any exclusive or peculiar interest in its affairs; but from the moment when Great Britain stood forth, virtually if not formally recognized as the paramount power, the history of both countries became in a manner identified, and ought therefore to be studied as one great whole. The vast space which separates them is a mere circumstance which, if it have any weight at all, ought rather to increase the interest of the reader, who is not only intro duced to new scenes and new modes of social existence, but follows his countrymen step by step, and sees them on a new sphere displaying the same unrivalled talents, civil and military, the same indomitable courage and perseverance, the same enlightened, humane, and generous spirit which have placed Great Britain at the head of modern nations, and given her the mightiest empire that the world has yet beheld. 5. While India was placed under a kind of tutelage, and those intrusted with its administration, instead of encouraging, systematically suppressed the public curiosity, there was doubtless some excuse for a feeling of apathy in regard to its affairs; but now that the anomalous form of government has been abolished,1 and the queen, ruling India in her own name without any adventitious intervention, has called upon her loving subjects to unite with her in developing its resources, as one of the most effectual means of promoting the general welfare of all her dominions, how can the call be properly responded to, unless the actual circumstances of the country, and the whole course of events by which these have been formed, are carefully studied?— Comprehensive History of India. THE TRUMPETS OF DOOLKARNEIN. In eastern history are two Iskanders, or Alexanders, who are sometimes confounded, and both of whom are called Doolkarnein, or the Two-Horned, in allusion to their subjugation of east and west, horns being an oriental symbol of power. One of these heroes is Alexander of Macedon,2 the other a conqueror of more ancient times, who built the marvellous series of ramparts on Mount Caucasus, known in fable as the wall of Gog and Magog, that is to say, of 1 The government of India was administered in trust by the Honourable East India Company till August, 1858. 2 Macedon, a province of ancient Greece. |