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vived by Eirenæus Philalethes, an Englishman styling himself Citizen of the World," with its mysterious frontispiece representing the Domus Naturæ, to which Nil deest, nisi clavis; the Pilgrim's Progress; two volumes of Ozell's translation of Rabelais; Latimer's Sermons; and the last volume of Fox's Martyrs, which latter book had been brought him by his wife. The Pilgrim's Progress was a godmother's present to his son: the odd volumes of Rabelais he had picked up at Kendal, at a sale in a lot with Ripley Revived and Plutarch's Morals: the others he had inherited.

Daniel had looked into all these books, read most of them, and believed all that he read, except Rabelais, which he could not tell what to make of. He was not, however, one of those persons who complacently suppose everything to be nonsense, which they do not perfectly comprehend, or flatter themselves that they do. His simple heart judged of books by what they ought to be, little knowing what they are. It never occurred to him that any thing would be printed which was not worth printing, any thing which did not convey either reasonable delight or useful instruction: and he was no more disposed to doubt the truth of what he read, than to question the veracity of his neighbour, or any one who had no interest in deceiving him. A book carried with it to him authority in its very aspect. The Morte d'Arthur therefore he received for authentic history, just as he did the painful chronicle of honest John Stowe, and the Barnesian labours of Joshua the self-satisfied: there was nothing in it indeed which stirred his English blood like the battles of Cressy and Poictiers and Najara ; yet on the whole he preferred it to Barnes's story, believed in Sir Tor, Sir Tristram, Sir Launcelot and Sir Lamorack as entirely as in Sir John Chandos, the Captal de Buche and the Black Prince, and liked them better.

Latimer and Du Bartas he used sometimes to read aloud on Sundays; and if the departed take cognizance of what passes on earth, and poets derive any satisfaction from that posthumous applause which is generally the only reward of those who deserve it, Sylvester might have found some compensation for the undeserved neglect into which his works had sunk, by the full and

devout delight which his rattling hymns and quaint collocations afforded to this reader. The silver-tongued Sylvester, however, was reserved for a Sabbath book; as a week-day author Daniel preferred Pliny, for the same reason that bread and cheese, or a rasher of hung mutton, contented his palate better than a syllabub. He frequently regretted that so knowing a writer had never seen or heard of Wethercote and Yordas caves; the ebbing and flowing spring at Giggleswick, Malham Cove, and Gordale Scar, that he might have described them among the wonders of the world. Omne ignotum pro magnifico is a maxim which will not in all cases hold good. There are things which we do not undervalue because we are familiar with them, but which are admired the more thoroughly they are known and understood; it is thus with the grand objects of nature and the finest works of art, with whatsoever is truly great and excellent. Daniel was not deficient in imagination; but no description of places which he had never seen, however exaggerated (as such things always are) impressed him so strongly as these objects in his own neighbourhood, which he had known from childhood. Three or four times in his life it had happened that strangers with a curiosity as uncommon in that age as it is general in this, came from afar to visit these wonders of the West Riding, and Daniel accompanied them with a delight such as he never experienced on any other occasion.

But the author in whom he delighted most was Plutarch, of whose works he was lucky enough to possess the worthier half: if the other had perished Plutarch would not have been a popular writer, but he would have held a higher place in the estimation of the judicious. Daniel could have posed a candidate for university honours, and perhaps the examiner too, with some of the odd learning which he had stored up in his memory from these great repositories of ancient knowledge. Refusing all reward for such services, the strangers to whom he officiated as a guide, though they perceived that he was an extraordinary person, were little aware how much information he had acquired, and of how strange a kind. His talk with them did not go beyond the subjects which the scenes they came to visit naturally suggested, and they wondered more at the questions he asked, than at any

thing which he advanced himself. For his disposition was naturally shy, and that which had been bashfulness in youth assumed the appearance of reserve as he advanced in life; for having none to communicate with upon his favourite studies, he lived in an intellectual world of his own, a mental solitude as complete as that of Alexander Selkirk or Robinson Crusoe. Even to the Curate his conversation if he had touched upon his books, would have been heathen Greek; and to speak the truth plainly, without knowing a letter of that language, he knew more about the Greeks, than nine-tenths of the clergy at that time, including all the dissenters, and than nine-tenths of the school-masters also.

Our good Daniel had none of that confidence which so usually and so unpleasantly characterizes self-taught men. In fact, he was by no means aware of the extent of his acquirements, all that he knew in this kind having been acquired for amusement, not for use. He had never attempted to teach himself anything. These books had lain in his way in boyhood, or fallen in it afterwards, and the perusal of them, intently as it was followed, was always accounted by him to be nothing more than recreation. None of his daily business had ever been neglected for it; he cultivated his fields and his garden, repaired his walls, looked to his stable, tended his cows and salved his sheep, as diligently and as contentedly as if he had possessed neither capacity nor inclination for any higher employments. Yet Daniel was one of those men, who, if disposition and aptitude were not overruled by circumstances, would have grown pale with study, instead of being bronzed and hardened by sun and wind and rain. There were in him undeveloped talents which might have raised him to distinction as an antiquary, a virtuoso of the Royal Society, a poet, or a theologian, to whichever course the bias in his ball of fortune had inclined. But he had not a particle of envy in his composition. He thought indeed that if he had had grammar learning in his youth like the curate, he would have made more use of it; but there was nothing either of the sourness or bitterness (call it which you please) of repining in this natural reflection.

The Doctor.

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P. 294, l. 14.

logue in verse,

P. 295, 1. 38.

reprint in Dr.

Morte d'Arthur. Malory's book.

Doctor. Sir Henry Holland.

Sylvester. Southey forgot or neglected a certain scandalous diatraditionally attributed to Sylvester and Ben Jonson.

Neglect. Sylvester has recently had justice done to him by a stately Grosart's Chertsey Worthies.

P. 296, 1. 9. Wonders. All these natural curiosities are in the limestone district of Craven in Yorkshire; nor did Daniel overrate them. The caves and spring describe themselves, but those who do not know them may be told that Malham Cove is a vast semicircular wall of rock overhanging a valley, and Gordale Scar a small but extraordinarily wild and fantastic waterfall.

P. 296, 1. 26. Worthier half. After allowing for the facts that the miscellanies called the Moralia are pretty certainly not all Plutarch's, and that they are extremely unequal in value, there is much truth in this.

P. 297, 1. 31. Bias in the proper sense, as used in the game of bowls.

IT

JANE AUSTEN.

Jane Austen was born at Steventon in 1775, and died at Chawton in 1817. Furnished with matter by an exquisite and not too satirical observation, equipped by nature and reading with a style not striking to the vulgar, but infinitely flexible and instinct with humour, Miss Austen achieved perhaps the most perfect, if not the largest or noblest work, yet done in the English novel.

A STRAWBERRY PARTY.

T was now the middle of June and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to pigeon pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage horse threw everything into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were inadequate to such an attack.

"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?" she cried; “and such weather for exploring! these delays and disappointments are quite odious. What are we to do? The year will wear away at this rate and nothing done. Before this time last year, I assure you, we had a delightful exploring party from Maple Grove to King's Weston."

"You had better explore to Donwell,” replied Mr. Knightley. "That may be done without horses. Come and eat my strawberries they are ripening fast."

If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously he was obliged to proceed so; for his proposal was caught at with delight; and

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