Kemble gave the promise, was immediately discharged, and never did perform the character more."

MARCH OF IMPROVEMENT AND INTELLECT.

Everything is changed. In the place of Scottish squires riding to London on horseback, with servants behind to guard them from harm, they are now whirled to the capital in the short space of 36 hours. In place of clumsy coasters creeping into creeks at every ominous appearance of the sky, and scarcely venturing to lose sight of land, we have steam-boats that serve all the purposes of bridges, and enable beggars as well as lords to set out on their travels to foreign parts. In London, Dublin, Liverpool, Greenock, the tourist may step into a floating palace, draw on his nightcap, go to bed, and after a sound night's repose, awaken next morning in a different kingdom-thus rivalling the exploits of the hags, who whilom clomb the welkin, mounted on a broom-stick, or the innocent victims they wickedly bewitched, and dropped from the clouds in a far country. The great modern wizard James Watt, has reduced to practice what was merely fabled of Sir Michael Scott. By applying the principle which lifts the lid of the spinster's tea-kettle, machines have been constructed which can pick up a pin and rend an oak-which combine the power of a community of giants with the plasticity that belongs to a lady's fair fingers-which spin cotton and then weave it into cloth-which by pumping sea water and extracting its steam, send vessels across the Atlantic in fifteen days and amidst a long list of other marvels, engrave seals, forge anchors, and lift a ship of war like a bauble in the air." Nor has the moral world remained stationary, while the physical was undergoing such wonderful revolutions. Of a truth the schoolmaster has been abroad, and, in our day, almost every district has its local journal-almost every village its library of useful and entertaining

knowledge. The simplest hind has changed his character, and become a unit in the great sum of national sentiment.

ANECDOTE OF SHERIDAN.

Bob Mitchell, one of Sheridan's intimate friends, and once in great prosperity, became like a great many other people-Sheridan's creditor; in fact Sheridan owed Bob nearly three thousand pounds. This circumstance amongst others contributed so very much to reduce Bob's finances, that he was driven to great straits, and in the course of his uncomfortable wanderings he called upon Sheridan. The conversation turned upon his financial difficulties, but not upon the principal cause of them, which was Sheridan's debt; but which of course, as an able tactician, he contrived to keep out of the discussion. At last, Bob, in a sort of agony, exclaimed “ I have not a guinea left, and by Heaven I don't know where to get one." Sheridan jumped up, and thrusting a piece of gold into his hand, exclaimed, with tears in his eyes-" It never shall be said that Bob Mitchell wanted a guinea while his friend Sheridan had one to give him."

THE LION.

This animal has been painted as possessed of the most magnanimous affections. "The king of the beasts" is a name applied to him, with which every one is familiar. But he has received credit to which he has no good title. In physical strength he is, indeed, unequalled. Ordained by nature to live on animal food, and fitted for the destruction of animal life by the most tremendous machinery that could be organized for such a purpose, he is regulated by a cunning peculiar to his species. But, in investigating the modes in which he employs these powers, the stories of his generosity will appear to be little better than the invention of poets and romance writers. "At the time," says Mr. Burchall, who had an opportunity of making himself acquainted with his nature, in Africa, "when men first

adopted the lion as the emblem of courage, it would seem that they regarded great strength as indicating it; but they were greatly mistaken in the character they have given to this indolent, skulking animal, and have overlooked a much better example of true courage, and of other virtues also, in the bold and faithful dog."

RELIGION.

Nothing has been more the object of ridicule than religion. It has been assailed by the wit of Voltaire, the ribaldry of Paine, and the elegant but subtle satire of Gibbon ;-yet the whole force of their combined talents has been insufficient to invalidate

one fact, to refute one fundamental truth, or to hold up the sacred form of vital religion to the scorn and derision of well-directed reason. The pageantry of superstition, and the dreams of fanaticism, have been demolished and scattered by their attacks; but the sacred fabric, though thus despoiled of the votive decorations of its human votaries, built on the rock of ages, has bid a proud defiance to the pointless shafts of ridicule.

When the highly esteemed and Rev. Cornelius Winter was delivering a sensible discourse to a crowded assembly, his gravity was disturbed, on casting his eye to a window next the causeway in the road, by a countryman staring into the meeting with a live pig on his shoulder, that also presented its vacant countenance and appeared equally interested in the gaze with its master. The writer of this circumstance recollects the amiable divine saying,-" That nothing in his whole life ever so unhinged his ideas, or spoiled his discourse, as this serious, but ludicrous and unconscious man and his pig."

APOPHTHEGMS.

There is no absurdity or extravagance that we can frame into words, or picture to the imagination, of which every day's experience would not afford a confirmation. The real caricatures are to be found in nature : no one dares describe them to the letter, for fear of being thought romantic. Our sympathy with, and consequent belief in, the folly and perversity of others, lag far behind the reality. Mounted on their hobbyhorsical humors, they outstrip the wind; and we lose sight of them before they get half way to the devil. A metaphysical theory, a paradox, an hyperbole hobbles lamely after them : no tricks of style are a match for the tricks which the mind plays with itself: the passions draw distinctions and conclusions finer than the subtlest reason can detect.

No habit is more difficultly acquired, than that of acknowledging our errors; and yet this habit is the best feature in an amiable character, and the strongest proof of a sound under