quaintance. There is a kind of knowledge which we need not possess in order to acquit ourselves of the charge of ignorance, or for the sake of scientific accuracy, which does, nevertheless, greatly furnish and enrich the mind. An extensive course of reading, and a wide range of facts, illustrate what we have already studied, help our expression of what we know, make composition more varied, flexible, and affluent, and accumulate resources for conversation. We may, for instance, learn the leading facts of history by the study of a few volumes, and thus understand very well the past and present states of the world. Yet who does not know that there are many collateral works, such as Notes," "Diaries," 66 Memoirs," which will shed much light upon the prominent facts, and enable one far better to appreciate and command her historical knowledge? The habits of a court, the manners and customs of a people, the person, dress, and private life of a statesman, monarch, or hero, all make the past more graphic

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to us, set the figures in a correct light and in due proportion upon the canvass; we can understand and describe them better; and the whole stream of historical knowledge is illuminated as well as deepened by these side facts. Again, we may know enough of geography for all ordinary purposes, such as the different divisions and boundaries of the earth, latitudes, climates, and the like. But how is our knowledge enriched and made fluent by the reading of authentic books of travels, explorations, ethnological researches! There are, again, many sciences of which it is not possible that we should possess an exhaustive knowledge; it is not necessary to a true culture that we should ; yet of which it is well that we should know something; and of which we may know something by the reading of a few general topics. But I need not dwell upon this point. I merely wish to illustrate the value of Reading as an accomplishment, apart from that strict study which is essential to culture.

Of this kind is the perusal of a great deal

of that literature which is called belles lettres. One, perhaps, could get along with the practical duties of life without any of this reading. But it is extremely necessary to an accomplished culture. If it does not deposit any solid facts in the mind, it refines and mellows it. It liberalizes us, expands our reflective powers, increases our stores of imagery and expression, and purifies our style. And, in connection with this, I may as well say a word about works of fiction-novel-reading. It is an extreme, and I think an erroneous opinion, to condemn such reading altogether. In the first place, if we reject works of fiction without any qualification as to the term, we repudiate some of the wisest and most widely adopted methods of instruction, such as the parable and the allegory, which set forth truth with accessories of the imagination, and which in this way effectually insinuate virtue that would have been unperceived or disregarded if stated in an axiom or a syllogism. Again, we must believe that our imaginative faculty

is given us to cultivate with the rest of our nature; it has its use, and I think an important use, in the scale of our general culture. Besides, in rejecting all works of fiction, we reject some of the noblest monuments of literature, both in poetry and prose, works which have not only delighted, but instructed and elevated innumerable readers, and which, therefore, we cannot think were guilty creations of their authors' minds, and total perversions of those gifts with which God endowed them. I do not mean - for I have not timeto go into the whole argument upon this subject; but I think that we should apply to novelreading the same principle which we apply to amusement. It is a mental recreation, which may be innocent and beneficial. But it is also a pursuit which is liable to great abuse. When we would occupy some leisure and listless hour with a book which through the agency of fiction imparts to us a keener insight into men and manners, a more graphic knowledge of the past, a more vivid sense of

our relations to humanity, and of the claims of duty, it is well enough. But when novels constitute our whole stock of reading, and that reading becomes an absorbing pursuit; when we devour indiscriminately all kinds of novels, anything and everything that crowds through the flood-gates of the press; books of all sorts of morality, and books with no morality at all; when other reading is omitted; when duty is neglected; when the hours of repose are foregone, and sacred seasons intruded upon; then it is but clinching a truism to say that novelreading is most pernicious and wicked. In the first place, there are but few novels that deserve the exception for which I have contended. Most of them, in a mere literary point of view, are unmitigated trash, the froth of superficial thinking, the scum of diseased sentiment; they are neither microscopes nor telescopes, but kaleidoscopes, only shifting into new and fantastic combinations old plots and sequels, which originally were false and colored views of men and actions. Those