brilliant and hardy genius the University of Paris appears to be indebted for its rapid advancement. Abelard was almost the first who awakened mankind in the ages of darkness to a sympathy with intellectual excellence......The resort of students to Paris became continually greater; they appear before the year 1169 to have been divided into nations; and probably they had an elected rector and voluntary rules of discipline about the same time. This however is not decisively proved; but in the last year of the twelfth century, they obtained their earliest charter from Philip Augustus.-HALLAM. State of Europe during the Middle Ages.

Social Worship agreeable to the best impulses of our nature.

When

Sentiments of admiration, love, and joy, swell the bosom with emotions which seek for fellowship and communication. The flame, indeed, may be kindled by silent musing; but when kindled it must infallibly spread. The devout heart, penetrated with large and affecting views of the immensity of the works of God, the harmony of his laws, and the extent of his beneficence, bursts into loud and vocal expressions of praise and adoration; and from a full and overflowing sensibility, seeks to expand itself to the utmost limits of creation. The mind is forcibly carried out of itself, and, embracing the whole circle of animated existence, calls on all above, around, below, to help to bear the burthen of its gratitude. Joy is too brilliant a thing to be confined within our own bosoms; it burnishes all nature, and with its vivid colouring gives a kind of fictitious life to objects without sense or motion. There cannot be a more striking proof of the social tendency of these feelings, than the strong propensity we have to suppose auditors when there are none. men are wanting, we address the animal creation; and rather than have none to partake of our feelings, we find sentiment in the music of birds, the hum of insects, and the low of kine: nay, we call on rocks and streams and forests to witness and share our emotions. Hence the royal shepherd, sojourning in caves and solitary wastes, calls on the hills to rejoice, and the floods to clap their hands and the lonely poet, wandering in the deep recesses of uncultivated nature, finds a temple in every solemn grove, and swells his chorus of praise with the winds that bow the lofty cedars. And can he, who, not satisfied with the wide range of animated existence, calls for the sympathy of the inanimate creation, refuse to worship with his fellow-men? Can he who bids "Nature attend," forget to "join every living soul" in the universal hymn? Shall we suppose companions in the stillness of deserts, and shall we overlook them amongst friends and townsmen? It cannot be! Social worship, for the devout heart, is not more a duty than it is a real want.MRS. BARBAULD.

Sketch of an English Barrister.

How cold and dead a figure does an orator often make at the

British bar, holding up his head with the most insipid serenity, and stroking the sides of a long wig that reaches down to his middle ! The truth of it is, there is often nothing more ridiculous than the gestures of an English speaker; you see some of them running their hands into their pockets, as far as ever they can thrust them; and others looking with great attention on a piece of paper that has nothing written on it; you may see many a smart rhetorician turning his hat in his hands, moulding it into several different cocks, examining sometimes the lining of it and sometimes the button, during the whole course of his harangue. A deaf man would think he was cheapening a beaver, when, perhaps, he is talking of the fate of the British nation. I remember, when I was a young man, and used to frequent Westminster-hall, there was a counsellor who never pleaded without a piece of packthread in his hand, which he used to twist about a thumb or a finger all the while he was speaking: the wags of those days used to call it "the thread of his discourse," for he was unable to utter a word without it. One of his clients, who was more merry than wise, stole it from him one day in the midst of his pleading: but he had better have let it alone, for he lost his cause by his jest.-ADDISON.

The family of Wakefield after the loss of their fortune.

The place of our retreat was in a little neighbourhood, consisting of farmers who tilled their own grounds, and were equal strangers to opulence and poverty. As they had almost all the conveniences of life within themselves, they seldom visited towns or cities in search of superfluities. Remote from the polite, they still retained the primeval simplicity of manners; and frugal by habit, they scarce knew that temperance was a virtue. They wrought with cheerfulness on days of labour, but observed festivals as intervals of idleness and pleasure. They kept up the Christmas carol, sent true-love-knots on Valentine morning, eat pancakes on Shrove-tide, showed their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on Michaelmas eve. Being apprised of our approach, the whole neighbourhood came out to meet their minister, dressed in their fine clothes, and preceded by a pipe and tabor: a feast also was provided for our reception, at which we sat cheerfully down; and what the conversation wanted in wit, was made up in laughter.

Our little habitation was situated at the foot of a sloping hill, shel tered with a beautiful underwood behind, and a prattling river before; on one side a meadow, on the other a green. My farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land, having given a hundred pounds for my predecessor's goodwill. Nothing could exceed the neatness of my little enclosures, the elms and hedge-rows appearing with inexpressible beauty. My house consisted of but one story, and was covered with thatch, which gave it an air of great snugness; the walls on the inside were nicely whitewashed, and my daughters undertook to adorn them with pictures of their own designing.

T

Though the same room served us for parlour and kitchen, that only made it the warmer. Besides, as it was kept with the utmost neatness, the dishes, plates and coppers being well scoured and all disposed in bright rows on the shelves, the eye was agreeably relieved, and did not want richer furniture. There were three other apartments: one for my wife and me; another for our two daughters within our own; and the third, with two beds, for the rest of the children.

The little republic to which I gave laws was regulated in the following manner by sunrise we all assembled in our common apartment, the fire being previously kindled by the servant. After we had saluted each other with proper ceremony, for I always thought fit to keep up some mechanical forms of good-breeding, without which freedom ever destroys friendship, we all bent in gratitude to that Being who gave us another day. This duty being performed, my son and I went to pursue our usual industry abroad, while my wife and daughters employed themselves in providing breakfast, which was always ready at a certain time. I allowed half an hour for this meal, and an hour for dinner; which time was taken up in innocent mirth between my wife and daughters, and in philosophical arguments between my son and me.

As we rose with the sun, so we never pursued our labour after it was gone down, but returned home to the expecting family; where smiling looks, a neat hearth and pleasant fire were prepared for our réception. Nor were we without guests: sometimes farmer Flamborough, our talkative neighbour, and often the blind piper, would pay us a visit, and taste our gooseberry wine; for the making of which we had lost neither the receipt nor the reputation. These harmless people had several ways of being good company; while one played, the other would sing some soothing ballad, Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-night, or, The Cruelty of Barbara Allen. The night was concluded in the manner we began the morning, my youngest boys being appointed to read the lessons of the day, and he that read loudest, distinctest and best, was to have a halfpenny on Sunday to put into the poor's box.

When Sunday came, it was indeed a day of finery, which all my sumptuary edicts could not restrain. How well soever I fancied my lectures against pride had conquered the vanity of my daughters, yet I still found them secretly attached to all their former finery; they still loved laces, ribands, bugles, and catgut; my wife herself retained a passion for her crimson paduasoy, because I formerly happened to say it became her.

The first Sunday in particular their behaviour served to mortify me: I had desired my girls the preceding night to be dressed early the next day, for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of the congregation. They punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters, dressed out in all their former splen

dour, their hair plaistered up with pomatum, their faces patched to taste, their trains bundled up into a heap behind, and rustling at every motion. I could not help smiling at their vanity, particularly that of my wife, from whom I expected more discretion. In this exigence, therefore, my only resource was, to order my son, with an important air, to call our coach. The girls were amazed at the command; but I repeated it with more solemnity than before. "Surely, my dear, you jest,” cried my wife, "we can walk it perfectly well; we want no coach to carry us now.' "You mistake, child," returned I, 66 we do want a coach; for if we walk to church in this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after us.” “Indeed,” replied my wife, “ I always imagined that my Charles was fond of seeing his children neat and handsome about him.” "You may be as neat as you please,” interrupted I, “and I shall love you the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These rufflings, and pinkings, and patchings, will only make us hated by all the wives of our neighbours. No, my children," continued I, more gravely, "those gowns may be altered into something of a plainer cut, for finery is very unbecoming in us, who want the means of decency. I do not know whether such flouncing and shredding is becoming even in the rich, if we consider, upon a moderate calculation, that the nakedness of the indigent world may be clothed from the trimmings

of the vain."

This remonstrance had the proper effect; they went with great composure, that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day I had the satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request, employed in cutting up their trains into Sunday waistcoats for Dick and Bill, the two little ones; and what was still more satisfactory, the gowns seemed improved by this curtailing.-OLIVER GOLD

SMITH.

The Temptation.

Ravenscroft was a man, I have heard say, of all men least calculated for a treasurer. He had no head for accounts, paid away at random, kept scarce any books, and summing up at the week's end, if he found himself a pound or so deficient, blest himself that it was

no worse.

Now Barbara's weekly stipend was a bare half-guinea. By mistake he popped into her hand—a whole one. Barbara tripped away. She was entirely unconscious at first of the mistake. Ravenscroft would never have discovered it.

But when she had got down to the first of those uncouth landingplaces, she became sensible of an unusual weight of metal pressing her little hand.

Now mark the dilemma.

She was by nature a good child. From her parents and those about her she had imbibed no contrary influence. But then they had taught her nothing. Poor men's smoky cabins are not always porticoes of moral philosophy. This little maid had no instinct to evil, but then

she might be said to have no fixed principle. She had heard honesty commended, but never dreamed of its application to herself. She thought of it as something which concerned grown-up people, men and women. She had never known temptation, or thought of pre

paring resistance against it.

Her first impulse was to go back to the old treasurer, and explain to him his blunder. He was already so confused with age, besides a natural want of punctuality, that she would have had some difficulty in making him understand it. She saw that in an instant. And then it was such a bit of money! And then the image of a large allowance of butcher's meat on their table next day came across her, till her little eyes glistened and her mouth moistened. But then Mr. Ravenscroft had always been so good-natured, had stood her friend so often. . . . But again, the old man was reputed to be worth a world of money. He was supposed to have fifty pounds a-year clear of his profession. And then came staring upon her the figures of her little stockingless and shoeless sisters. And when she looked at her own neat white cotton-stockings, which her situation made it indispensable for her mother to provide for her, with hard straining and pinching from the family stock, and thought how glad she should be to cover their poor feet with the same...In these thoughts she reached the second landing-place-the second, I mean, from the top -for there was still another left to traverse.

Now virtue support Barbara!

And that never-failing friend did step in; for at that moment a strength not her own, I have heard her say, was revealed to her—a reason above reasoning-and without her own agency, as it seemed (for she never felt her feet to move), she found herself transported back to the individual desk she had just quitted, and her hand in the old hand of Ravenscroft, who in silence took back the refunded treasure, and who had been sitting (good man) insensible to the lapse of minutes, which to her were anxious ages; and from that moment a deep peace fell upon her heart, and she knew the quality of honesty.

A year or two's unrepining application to her duty brightened up the feet and the prospects of her little sisters, set the whole family upon their legs again, and released her from the difficulty of discussing moral dogmas upon a landing-place.

I have heard her say, that it was a surprise, not much short of mortification to her, to see the coolness with which the old man pocketed the difference, which had caused her such mortal throes.

This anecdote of herself I had in the year 1800, from the mouth of the late Mrs. Crawford, then sixty-seven years of age.-CHARLES LAMB*.

The Vision of Mirza.

On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of

* Charles Lamb was educated in Christ's Hospital, London. He died in 1834, aged 59.