of what use is it to appeal to a score or more of mediocrities? If we can cite Aristotle, why go to Keckermannus if Bacon, how shall we further confirm the statement by appeal to Kettwigius ? Not only is a large part of the citations in these volumes mere stuffing; we cannot but feel assured that a great number are simply pillaged from previous writers. It must be so, if we consider what is implied in their being honestly quoted. Those authors who know their proper business, know that to hunt up a passage, to determine its real relevance, to read for the purpose what goes before, and what comes after (and not, as many have done, take, by mere haste, an objection the cited author is just going to refute, for his own opinion and a sanction of ours!) requires time; to transcribe the passage or the reference, to verify it properly in the proof, and see that it is still accurate in the last revise, requires more; so that we are sure the task which so many learned pedants, in such books as you have sent me, would pretend they had honestly performed, is a task only for a Methuselah. For this reason, as well as for the others already mentioned, an honest author will be as parsimonious of his references and citations as possible-not as profuse.

Thousands of such books as this have the pedants among our German neighbours produced; amongst us they are happily rare. The folly of ostentatious learning has indeed its day at some period or other, in the development of every national literature; it had in ours two hundred years ago. But I think it is not likely to revive at least it is to be hoped so.

For what at the best is the use of such books? They are not read: how can they be? Their only effect is to produce in a sciolist here and there an impression that the author of a mere farrago is a very learned man; and perhaps, where the subject is one of controversy, an impression that the cause he advocates is impregnably fortified. It is so, as far as such books can fortify it; for who can confute what nobody will read?

As to reading them it is out of the question. What can your progress (every clause cut into two by references) be compared to except bump,- bump,- bumping, in a rough cart, over the

frozen furrows of a ploughed field? What mortal patience is equal to the task of reading page after page constructed on the model of such sentences as this, if I may venture to imitate the inimitable :

"It is surely a mystery (Jamblich. de Mysteriis: Gr. et Lat. ed. Th. Gale. Oxon. 1678, passim) that you should give to a friend (Plat.: Phileb.: 13 c.; Theœtet. 143 B. ed. G. Stallbaum ; Aristot. Ethic. Nicom. lib. viii. cap. 1—13. ed. Im. Bekker;) or indeed even to an acquaintance (Ciceronis de Amicitiâ, pp.1—49, ed. Joh. Guldenschaff; Theophrast. frag. Tepì piλiac) a book that is incomprehensible (akaráληπтov, vide Philonis de Somn. pp. 360–369; Procli in Theologiam Plat. lib. v. passim ;) even in its elements (σroixɛĩa); the perusal of which, (vide Facciolati in voc. perlegere :) must involve pure waste of time (Kettwigii de Usu Temporis, vol. x. fol. p. 1—1098: Test. Vet. et Nov. passim) and make us angry (vide Schelhorn in Amanitat. Litt. tom. ii. pp. 1-532) rather than pleased with the lender."

Pray, my dear friend, study this last sentence, carefully looking up all the references and ascertaining their relevance; and remember in your next loan of books that life is but short; and that as of the writing of many books, so sometimes of the reading even of one, "there is no end."

I was amazed by the unusual length of your last letter received last week, crossed, absolutely crossed, a thing, I think in these penny-post days, I have hardly seen these ten years. I

dare say it may be discovered in the letters of lovers, possibly also (as in our case) between very dear friends who chatter to each other across the equinoctial line, or endeavour to keep their love from starving by a yearly letter, like the "Friends' Annual Epistle," between the St. Lawrence and the Cape of Good Hope, or "Auld Reekie" and Canton.

Many thanks to you for it. I assure you I accept it as a greater proof of affection than if you had sent the choicest curiosities of your adopted country. It pleased me better than a genuine warclub, wielded by the redoubtable arm of Wahitabahaoo (which means, my dear, "the Son of a Gun," as you may see by consulting any of the native lexicons); or a sheaf of arrows tipped with fish-bone; or a pickled head of some renowned captive, which the New Zealand gentry had preserved as a trophy; or a grotesque plumed head-dress by which some diabolical-looking war-chief vainly tried to add to the horrors of his visage, furrowed with the tattoo and the deeper signature of demoniacal passions. Nay, I value your handwriting even more than if you had sent (what I rather affect than any such grim souvenirs) a pot or two of the most tempting preserved fruits, or a barrel of the finest New Zealand pippins. Yet, if your affection, my dear Louise, so seeks to express itself, pray do not balk it. The language of symbols is always expressive; and if the language of flowers be edifying, what must that of fruits be? If a Persian lady, instead of greeting her lover with roses and lilies, were to manoeuvre with dates and guavas, how much deeper the impression she would make on her inamorato. Your letter, notwithstanding all its intersections, and, forgive me, my dear, its occasional meanderings and waving deflections from absolute parallelism, was all duly read; though I deny not that some parts required careful and frequent adjustment of my spectacles. I despair of emulating your copiousness, but I am sure I return your affection.

The truth is, the mere toil of writing is becoming increasingly burdensome, and therefore odious to me, every day. I sometimes wish that all the world wrote and read short-hand.

It would be

at least a prodigious saving of time and labour. And why, by

the way, should it not be a universal accomplishment? Nay, I believe it will some day. It were easy to superadd this little trifle to the dozen other things which children, with that wonderful plasticity and activity of the imitative faculties which God, for wisest purposes, has given to their age, so easily acquire. It is really nothing compared with learning to walk, or to talk, or to read (since that art, once learned, is itself auxiliary to learning short-hand), or to play on the piano. An intelligent child of eight would master its chief difficulties in twenty lessons, and at that age, would have time to become skilled in the art of reading it, which, by the way, is to adults the chief difficulty. Nay ́ordinary lesson-books might soon be printed in it.

What an economy of time, patience, paper, and ink, the revolution would effect! Methinks I see the results. What sweet little billet-doux which no dove need be employed to carry, but which might be wafted on the wing of a butterfly! What delicious little note-paper should we see, 160mo, and envelopes of the size of a peasecod! Farewell all lumbering books and huge collections; we should literally have "pocket libraries ;" a gentleman might carry half the plays of Shakspeare in one waistcoat pocket, and all Milton in the other; while a whole Bodleian almost would go into his great-coat. Your good husband might have put the huge Encyclopædia, about which he was so terribly anxious, into his portmanteau. Prithee set about learning and reading it without delay.

To be sure we must expect, should this great revolution be effected, to hear something about "vested rights," as in all such cases; of printers and paper-makers perishing of starvation, just as the old stage coachmen were to do when railroads were opened! Petitions will perhaps be presented for the taxing of all short-hand books. If any such tax be imposed, let us hope that it will be in the ratio of their cubical contents; in that case the impost will not be ruinous.

Shall we have the penny ocean-postage? I think we can scarcely expect it; nor, as a financial measure, would it be wise. Twopence or threepence, however, would do well, and that is

Q

surely little enough to pay for sending a missive to the Antipodes. I have not the shadow of a doubt that such a rate as that would pay its expenses, and, after a time, even yield a fair revenue; for we are but at the beginning of the immense intercourse which will soon bring all islands and continents into close neighbourhood; everybody will soon have friends and relatives everywhere, and the facilities of communication will jog memory. In a little time, more thoughts will be exchanged, more love breathed from one end of the earth to the other in a month, than formerly travelled between London and Edinburgh in a whole century. It is no doubt sweet thus to converse, but I still hanker for an improvement. I long for an occasional peep at you by an ElectricTelegraph Trip-train," and above all, I want the Electric Telegraph itself to the other world, and have a message now and then from those dear ones we have loved and lost. Oh! what a luxury would that be. But it cannot be. I can talk to you on the other side of the equator; but from that dread land of silence, divided only by the "narrow stream of death," on the frontiers of which we ever stand, and into which we may any moment glide, we can hear no tidings, and can send none thither. You see the old wound still rankles.

66

And yet I am both presumptuous and ungrateful in talking thus. I am presumptuous in saying "I can talk to you at the Antipodes;" for at this very moment, my heart whispers that you (and the thought chills as I write it) may already have passed into the world of shadows, or I may be a shadow before you read this; and I am ungrateful, for if our hearts are where they ought to be, and where out professed "treasure" is, there will be no lack of sympathy and communion between us and heaven; if we cannot hold intercourse with departed friends, we can with Him "in whom they abide," and who will not forget either them or us, as long as we forget not Him. And when we can truly feel thus, we need no celestial "telegraph" any longer; at least I can truly say, and nothing can wrest this experience from me, that quicker than steam, than light, than electricity even as quick as thought, God is present with us when, in the full repose of a child's love and faith, we desire to be present with Him.