As was said before, if this great error is ever amended, it must be in youth; and to be amended it must be detected. Some will tell us it is all in natural temperament, or in the organs of the brain; and it cannot be denied that there are great differences in the constitutions of men: all are not moulded of the same clay. Yet here, as in a thousand similar instances, the pains of education, and especially of self-control, are not in vain. Even a bad constitution may be kept alive and strengthened, which, if let alone, would soon go to ruin.

At a

It is the ruinous mistake of many to suppose that mere talent can insure success without constancy and perseverance. One of the most ingenious men I have ever known, is at the same time the most useless member of society. With abilities which might have made his fortune long ago, he is little above the condition of a pauper. very early age he was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker, with whom he served about half his time, and learned the simpler operations. During this time, however, he invented a machine for making sausages, for which he received a handsome sum from a neighbouring butcher. It is hard to say what trade he is of, for he plies almost every sort of handicraft. I lately consulted him about a crazy bathing-tub, but found that he had ceased to be a cooper, and was manufacturing shoemakers' lasts. He has made reeds for weavers, bird-cages, and wire-safes; he has taken out several patents

for churns, and has even tinkered a little about clocks and watches. But, then, his patents do him no good, for he has not resolution to fulfil his orders, and his occupations are so various that no one knows where to find him. Yet I never met with any who did not grant that this same fellow was one of the greatest mechanical geniuses in our neighbourhood. But mere cleverness, without strength of character, can never make a man respectable, useful, or happy.

22*

XLI.

THE WORKING-MAN'S GOOD WORKS.

"Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."

POPE.

Ir is an unwilling tribute to moral principle, that even the most hardened of our race dislike to be called selfish. It needs little instruction and little philosophy to show a man that he does not live entirely for his own interest; and the slightest experience is sufficient to prove that he who tries to do so offends against his own happiness. The person who cares for nobody but himself, is in every sense a wretch, and so glaring is this wretchedness in the case of the moneyslave, that we have borrowed a word of this import from Latin, and call him a miser.

From their earliest years, our children should be taught this simple but invaluable lesson, that benevolence is bliss. Do good and be happy. We are most like God, the happiest of all beings, when we are most beneficent. In pursuance of this, I would bring up my child to feel that his cake, or his penny, or his orange was to be shared; that for this purpose it is given; and that he fails

of his pleasure if this end is not attained. I would make it one of his chief rewards to carry aid to the poor, and would give hin an early chance of being my almoner. And when fit opportunities occurred, I would take him with me to see for himself the happiness effected by his own little gifts. For it is apt to slip from our thoughts that in moral as well as in intellectual principles and habits, the mind is made by education. Conscience and the affections are almost latent in the savage, or the London thief, or the young slavetrader; and a child bred in the forest would be only above the ourang-outang, in morals as in reason. A difference not so great, yet by no means unimportant, is to be observed in the children of different families, in respect to kindness of feeling and beneficence of action. Let us aim to bring up our little ones to deeds of mercy.

Do we, however, who are parents, teach them by example? Have we any plans for doing good? Are we not quite content to let days roll by, in which we have not conferred a real benefit on any fellow-creature? Is the impression deep in our own minds, that there is a luxury in doing good, and that it is its own reward? Benevolence should be cherished by contemplating the characters of such as have acquired the blessed reputation of philanthropists: though there are thousands who never have the name, because they have modestly shunned the publicity.

Travellers in Herefordshire are still shown the arm-chair of John Kyrle, the original of Pope's "Man of Ross." Of his history not much can be recovered, and this little is preserved entirely by the memorials of his good deeds; for he lives in the recollection of the poor in that neighbourhood. He does not seem to have been remarkable for any thing but his beneficence. As we learn, on good authority, that the celebrated lines of the poet are not exaggerated, we prefer his elegant description to any thing of our own:

"But all our praises why should lords engross ?
Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross.
Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
'The MAN OF Ross,' each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place, with poor o'erspread;
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread;
He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state,
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate;
Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans bless'd,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
Is any sick?-the Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes and gives.
Is there a variance?-enter but his door,
Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.
O say, what sums that generous hand supply?
What mines, to swell that boundless charity?
Of debt and taxes, wife and children clear,
That man possess'd-five hundred pounds a year.'