VOL. 2.] Original Letters from a Father to his Son. 51 After having painted a few "places of nestling green, for poets made," thus Mr. Keats: "What first inspired a bard of old to sing boldly of the future eminence of our trated the science of Botany in a poem young poet, for we have no where found called "the Loves of the Plants." them so early or so beautifully displayed as in the pages of the volume before us. The youthful architect may be discovered in the petty arguments of his principal pieces. These poetical structures may be compared to no gorgeous palaces, no solemn temples; and in his enmity to the French school, and to the Augustan age of England, he seems to have a principle, that plan and arrange ment are prejudicial to natural poetry. The principal conception of his first poem is the same as that of a contemporary author, Mr. Wordsworth, and presumes that the most ancient poets, who are the inventors of the Heathen Mythology, imagined those fables chiefly by the personification of many appearances in nature; just as the astronomers of Egypt gave name and figure to many of our constellations, and as the late Dr. Darwin ingeniously illus Yo To woo its own sad image into nearness ; LETTERS FROM A FATHER TO HIS SON. CONCLUSION OF LETTER III. From the European Magazine. With time as undivided as possible which OU will perhaps tell me, that these makes up the hours of official employ; avocations are not always equally and with this arrangement in view, you pressing, and that instances frequently will never be at a loss to devise some occur in which you have nothing to do for profitable application of these intervals an hour or two together. Such an occur- of remission, that shall preserve your rence, however, is no excuse for any thoughts in the same direction. waste of the intermediate time-the tem- your natural strength of intellect, you porary cessation of business gives you, at will not experience any serious difficulty all events, an opportunity to fill up the in doing this for a few hours in the day; space with some improving pursuit that and I venture to predict, that if you relates to the subjects which your situa- adhere to this industrious system, you tion embraces; for this purpose I will reap one certain fruit of it which would recommend you to substitute for will encourage your emulation ;-you the useless reading to which I have will find your aptness for business gradadverted, some of those publications ually increased far above that of your which I referred to in my last, that treat compeers, who so blindly forfeit their upon commercial topics.-There is an best opportunities of qualifying themselves excellent book lately published, called for the higher departments of official life. "the Universal Cambist" which would In such progress the adage, "Divide et put you in possession of much valuable impera," will be well exemplified by information; this you might keep by your advancement in those powers of you in reserve for such unemployed pe- personal intelligence and professional riods; it is a book of business and will knowledge, which nothing but this regunot be out of its place. At all events, lar distribution of your time can secure. my dear G, let it be your constant You will be better enabled to command object to preserve that portion of your your opportunities of official information, 52 Original Letters from a Father to his Son. [VOL. 2. and to seize those facilities of recommend- sense will admit as deserving of your ing yourself to the notice of your superiors, notice, what every man has sooner or on which your hopes of promotion de- later in life acknowledged in its advanpend. Your assiduity will thus be tages, or lamented in the loss of them; acknowledged, and your merits will not for the value of time is what every one be disappointed of their reward. can appreciate, although every man does I confess to you, my dear G, that not apply it to the most valuable purpoI should very intimately feel your dis- ses. I have endeavoured, therefore, to comfiture, were any such disappoint- avoid the numerous trite sayings which ment to ensue; still I would flatter my have spoken the language of this expeself (and a father's hopes are not easily rience in those general terms in which supported by any such self-persuasions it is accustomed to express itself-all I without some more rational ground than have in view is to save you the pain of his own feelings) that the advice which fruitless regret, and to point out the way I have given you, if admitted into your by which you may avoid it. I shall not rules of conduct, will furnish you with urge my admonitions on this head farample means of escaping such disap- ther than to add, that he who does not pointment. But if you should not con- reckon the worth of that part of his time struct your expectations upon the same for which he is paid, according to the grounds as my anxiety for your prospe- standard of its usefulness by which he rous progress has formed its anticipa- has pledged it to his employers, is not tions, let me appeal to your self-reference; and if your sense of duty should fail, let me retain your pride on my side ;-you have received a liberal education-you are blest with intellectual powers above the common standard-you have enjoyed opportunities which few of young men to provide that neither he disappointed. around you have had the advantage of cultivating-would it not then reflect very seriously upon yourself, if you were to reject from your consideration, all these essentials, and for the want of assiduity, were to forfeit all the concurrent chances in your favour? If you be disposed to commit so palpable a suicide upon your hopes, let one of our modern poets, whom I quote by recollection, stimulate you to the action : ---------------“ think of some Assiduous booby mounting o'er your head, And thence with saucy interest looking down, Think of (Reflection's stab!) the pitying likely to meet their expectations or promote his own, and as the latter must in your case materially depend upon the former, it becomes the individual interest of your official relation, as well as the moral duty of your personal character, I shall now proceed to the next division of your time, the hours to be allotted to study: for I cannot allow myself to suppose for a moment, that you can remain satisfied with the scanty store of knowledge which your scholastic acquirements have put you in possession of: but admitting that such a supposition might be made without any injuri ous reflection upon the active powers of your mind, it would still infer that you keep up those acquirements, and not degrade the toga of manhood because you have thrown aside the prætexta of the schoolboy. I could wish that the former may be worn with dignity, and believe me, a well cultivated intellect is the only qualification that can give a step of superiority corresponding with the garb. Do not then suppose that you have noI am unwilling, my dear G, to thing farther to do with learning, besuppose that another's sentiments will cause you have escaped from the tramhave more influence upon your mind els of first-form lessous. I have often than a father's, otherwise I could mul- heard it said by some of the first men of tiply my quotations, not merely from the age, that they have learned more afour own writers on this important ques- ter they left school than they had action, but from your old acquaintance quired during the whole time which they among your school classics. However, I had passed there. But whence does will persuade myself that your common this remark proceed? why, from a ma friend, With shoulders shrugg'd and sorry---think that Time Has golden minutes if discreetly seized.” VOL. 2.] Original Letters from a Father. 53 turity of reflection which has enabled ways respected for what he knows, and them to apply what they had learned, courted for what he communicates; he with a more apposite sense of its drift is acceptable to all and in every station : and meaning. At your age, the powers but when we speak of a man of reading, of reflection begin to expand themselves, we mean a man of literary acquirements; and the judgment to feel its strength; and this every young man may become and unless I am much mistaken in the who has had the foundation already laid character of your mind, it would repel in his mind by classical tuition. Two with indignant emotion, the charge of hours' study in a day, if regularly peracting in direct opposition to either but severed in, will go a great way in the it often happens, in this case as well as course of the year towards enriching in matters of more moral import, that your intellectual store; and I am not we may individually adopt the poet's exacting too much, when I advise you confession-meliora probo, deteriora se- to seize these hours in the earlier part of quor, so with respect to the suggestions the morning. This will not interfere of reflection and the convictions of our with that season of repose which is usualjudgment, we may be fully capable of ly applied to the recruiting of your menestimating an advantage, and of calculat- tal and bodily vigour by sleep; because, ing our opportunities to improve it, yet seven hours of sleep ought to be reckonat the same time we are not unfrequent- ed sufficient for any man, and especially ly led by the insinuating influence of the a young man. Throughout three parts gayer pursuits of life to sacrifice the one of the year this appropriation may be and neglect the other. If I could think easily effected; and I will not admit the that you were already so well acquainted supposition for a moment, that you with all those subjects of general know- would rather lose so precious an opporledge, which are so essential to complete tunity in the senseless sloth of the sluga well-informed man, I should not be gard: for there cannot be a more dedisposed, perhaps, to urge the necessity grading surrender of the faculties than for devoting two hours a day at least to that which slothfulness is sure to prothat sort of reading which would quali- duce: always despicable in every one, fy you for supporting this character. As in a young man it is disgusting, and a young man, you may indeed be already gives to all who know him the meanest better informed than those with whom opinion of his understanding. you associate; you know something of chess, and you therefore know that a moderate player will never become an adept at the game, if he contends only with those who are inferior to himself; so be who is contented with being thought In the winter months you may transfer learned by the ignorant, will be conscious this division of your time from the mornof no stimulus to increase his knowledge: ing to the evening, or reserve one hour he may be a giant among pigmies, but for each part of the day. "O listen not to that enchantress, Sloth, must himself be a pigmy among those I need not again mention those subwhose loftier stature of genius, and more jects of your study which I have already powerful grasp of comprehension, have particularised as peculiarly appertaining been formed by continued study and in- to the business of your station; but it tellectual research; and if by fortuitous interest such an one rises above that level which far exceeds the just meed of his merit, he may fancy himself a great man, because he is invested with authority over others who have not had to boast of so much adventitious support as himself; but, if his knowledge be not also task, after having obtained a competent above the level of those below him, he knowledge of Greek and Latin. will at once be feared and despised. A will naturally conclude, my dear G man of reading, on the contrary, is al- that I submit all this enumeration to may be useful for me to observe, that there are others which belong to what is called ornamental reading, that must not be omitted; such as the works of our poets and essayists, and the acquiring a knowledge of foreign languages: the latter you will find to be a much easier You 54 Original Letters from a Father. [VOL. 2 your peculiar turn of mind, and not mean ous application: and the less intelligent, to insist upon the dictate farther than will hear you, with a grateful participayour taste may decide. What I wish tion in your knowledge. you to understand by it is, that at all I now come to that part of the divievents I am anxious for your employing sion of your time, which at our first ina part of your leisure in gaining such troduction into life we are apt to considknowledge as will always be useful and er as no less important than those points gratifying to yourself and others; and which I have discussed; and so it cerwithout which you will find yourself tainly is, for more depends upon the shut out from the wisest and the most arrangement of our amusements than we profitable associations in life, such as it are perhaps at first aware of. The very is both honourable and praiseworthy in meaning of the word recreation, which a young man to cultivate. Bacon, who we use, as comprehending them all unis one of the essayists that I should earn- der one head, implies, that some portion estly recommend you to read, as being of our time is necessary for that renovain himself a host of original thought and tion of the mental powers which enables practical precept, has the following pas- us to pursue our studies with more efsage upon study, which I quote as ap- fect, and to return to our occupations of plicable to this part of my subject, more business with more inclination to fulfil especially as blended with what has gone their respective duties; but then you before: "Studies serve for delight, for will perceive, that this renovation is alornament, and for ability. The chief together opposite to that inconsiderate use for delight is in privateness and re- dissipation of our time, which disqualitiring; for ornament, is in discourse; fies us for all true relish of the one, and and for ability, is in the judgment and a conscientious discharge of the other. disposition of business. Crafty men In my next letter, my dear G, I contemn studies, simple men admire shall attempt to delineate those false nothem, and wise men use them. Read- tions of recreation, which young men of ing maketh a full man, conference a your condition in life are too apt to form ready man, and writing an exact man: of it; and to contrast them with those by and therefore, if a man write little, he which the judicious and virtuous part of had need have a great memory; if he society has more correctly characterised it. confer little, he had need have a present I am aware, my dear G, that the wit; and if he read little, he had need preceptive form of these letters may have much cunning to seem to know that assume a less acceptable shape of admowhich he doth not." nition than what the lively impressions of a young mind may willingly acknow To combine all this useful application, I should wish you to make use of ledge: but you will reflect, that what is Locke's Common-place book, for the insertion of such passages of the authors which you read, as you may think most worthy of selection, and deserving of being impressed upon your particular attention. You will thus read with more advantage, and will secure to yourself a treasure of reference whenever you may desire to give weight to your own sentiments by authorities which the world has long been in the habit of admitting You will then accept my anxieties to as such. Besides, by this practice ideas acquit myself of my obligation, and alwill be furnished to your recollection, low me to hope that you will take in which will give a substance to your con- good part what flows from the most unversation, that will render it worth the feigned wish to promote your happiness; while of those with whom you converse a feeling which, whether acknowledged to attend to what you say: the wise will or not by you, will never cease to actuate listen to you with pleasure, from their with the tenderest interest the mind and conviction of your good sense and studi- heart of Your affectionate father, W. serious is sincere, and that nothing can be more serious or sincere than the precepts of a father, which have for their object the welfare of his child; because there cannot be a more solemn responsibility than that with which the former is invested by the Creator of both, or a more agonising remorse than that which will assuredly follow from dereliction of duty in either. VOL. 2.] Miscellanea.-Prodigies. SIMILARITIES IN ANCIENT AND MODERN WRITINGS. SIR, To the Editor of the European Magazine, 55 How hast thou fallen on our mountains? How is the mighty low? places: how are the mighty fallen! THER HERE is so striking a similarity be- which is not unlike the beautiful extween the language of the author of clamation of David, when he bewailed Rasselas, in describing the philosopher, the death of Saul and Jonathan : after the death of his child, as quoted in The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high your Number for May, and a passage 1 Sam. i. 19. in the sublime book of Job, that it seems reasonable to suppose Dr. Johnson selected it, for the purpose of giving so excellent an amplification of the sentiments it contains. "Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees; In Thomas Moore's new work, Lalla Rookh, he appears to have selected this passage from Sterne : "The accusing spirit which flew up to Heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel who wrote it down dropped a tear, and blotted it out for ever." and to have embodied the sentiment But now it is come upon thee, and thou in poetical language, when, after desfaintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art cribing the criminal life of one who Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy suddenly became repentant, and alhope, and the uprightness of thy days." luding to the record of his actions in C. iv. v. 3--6. Heaven, he says, troubled. Virgil and Ossian were of two dif- Thus Englished by Dryden; Neither of the above two poets ever saw the Bible; yet Ossian says, in the poem already mentioned, Fallen is the arm of battle; the mighty among the valiant is low! Book v. and in that called the battle of Lora, there written, all, Paradise and the Peri. ON PRODIGIES. From the European Magazine. Quippe etenim quam multa tibi jam fingens possum HAD passed the evening over Livy, and was amusing myself by consider ing the precision with which the prodigies that occurred are recorded in each year, and the detail of them given with as much regularity and gravity as the succession of magistrates, while I was trying to recon C. cile to myself the influence they obtained. and the care with which they were constantly expiated, I fell into a contemplation on the subjection of the human mind to whatever manifests itself in a shape beyond the common course of nature. And as I ran over in my mind the battles that have been decided by incidents that were judged ominous, the changes and entire revolutions that have been effected in states by oracles and portents, and even |