It may be demanded if we should be indifferent to the approbation of men. Certainly not. It is a proper source of gratification, and is one of the just rewards on earth. It may be enjoyed when virtuously won, though it were better if not proposed as the object of desire. The great English magistrate, Lord Mansfield, while confessing a wish for popularity, added, in words which cannot be too often quoted, "But it is that popularity which follows, not that which is run after; it is that popularity which, sooner or later, never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends by noble means." And the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, who was no stranger to the Love of Glory, has given expression to the satisfaction which he derived from the approbation of those whose opinions were valuable. "If I listened to the music of praise," says Gibbon in his Autobiography, "I was more seriously satisfied with the approbation of my judges. The candor of Dr. Robertson embraced his disciple. A letter from Mr. Hume overpaid the labor of ten years." It would be difficult to declare the self-gratulation of the successful author in language more sententious or expressive.

While recognizing praise as an incidental reward, though not a commendable motive, we cannot disregard the evil which ensues when the desire for it predominates over the character, and fills the soul, as is too often the case, with a blind emulation chiefly solicitous for personal success. The world, which should be a happy scene of constant exertion and harmonious co-operation, becomes a field of rivalry, competition, and hostile struggle. It is true that God has not given to all the same excellences of mind and heart; but he naturally requires more of the strong than of the many less blessed. The little we can do will not be cast vainly into his treasury; nor need the weak and humble be filled with any idle emulation of others. Let each act earnestly, according to the measure of his powers, -rejoicing always in the prosperity of his neighbor; and though we may seem to accomplish little, yet we shall do much, if we be true to the convictions of the soul, and give the example of unselfish devotion to duty. This of itself is success; and this is within the ambition of all. Life is no Ulyssean bow, to be bent only by a single strong There is none so weak as not to use it.

arm.

In the growth of the individual the intellect advances before the moral powers; for it is necessary to know what is right before we can practice it; and this same order of progress is observed in the

Human Family. Moral excellence is the bright, consummate flower of all progress. It is often the peculiar product of age. And it is then, among other triumphs of virtue, that Duty assumes her commanding place, while personal ambition is abased. Burke, in that marvelous passage of elegiac beauty where he mourns his only son, says, "Indeed, my Lord, I greatly deceive myself, if, in this hard season, I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called Fame and Honor in the world." And Channing, with a sentiment most unlike the ancient Roman orator, declares that he sees "nothing worth living for but the divine virtue which endures and surrenders all things for truth, duty, and mankind." Such an insensibility to worldly objects, and such an elevation of spirit, may not be expected at once from all men, certainly not without something of the trials of Burke or the soul of Channing. But it is within the power of all to strive after that virtue which it may be difficult to reach; and just in proportion as duty becomes the guide and the aim of life shall we learn to close the soul against the allurements of praise and the asperities of censure, while we find satisfactions and compensations such as man cannot give or take away. The world, with ignorant or intolerant judgment, may condemn; the countenance of companion may be averted; the heart of friend may grow cold; but the consciousness of duty done will be sweeter than the applause of the world, than the countenance of companion, or the heart of friend.

THE age of chivalry has gone. An age of humanity has come. The horse, whose importance, more than human, gave the name to that early period of gallantry and war, now yields his foremost place to man. In serving him, in promoting his elevation, in contributing to his welfare, in doing him good, there are fields of bloodless triumph, nobler far than any in which the bravest knights ever conquered. Here are spaces of labor wide as the world, lofty as heaven.

Let me say, then, in the language once bestowed upon the youthful knights, scholars, jurists, artists, philanthropists, heroes of a Christian age, companions of a celestial knighthood, "Go forth. Be brave, loyal, and successful!" And may it be our office to light a fresh beaconfire sacred to truth! Let the flame spread from hill to hill, from island to island, from continent to continent, till the long lineage of fires shall illumine all the nations of the earth, animating them to the holy contests of knowledge, justice, beauty, love.

DICKENS.

1812-1870.

CHARLES DICKENS, the most popular novelist of his time, was born at Portsmouth, England, in 1812, and died June 9, 1870. His childhood was spent in poverty and menial toil, and how, amid such unfavorable surroundings, he acquired an education sufficient for his work in life will always remain a subject of wonder. His father was at one time a reporter of Parliamentary debates, and Charles adopted the same calling. He became attached to the Morning Chronicle, and in its columns first appeared Sketches by Boz, afterwards published in book form, 1836-37. These Sketches had a very cordial reception, and their success induced a publisher to engage Dickens and Seymour the artist to prepare an illustrated narrative of the adventures of a party of Cockney sportsmen. The result of this contract was The Pickwick Papers, which at once became the most popular book of the day, and still ranks among the first favorites of all classes of readers. It was followed at short intervals by Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge. In 1842 Dickens visited America, where he had a very cordial reception. With ingratitude for which he has never been fully forgiven, he repaid the sincere kindness of his American entertainers by writing a record of his tour, called American Notes, in which he ridiculed the people and institutions of the United States with unsparing hand. In Martin Chuzzlewit, published in 1844, he returned to the attack with great keenness and vigor of satire. In 1845 he established the Daily News in London, but conducted it only for a short time, returning to the more congenial work of novel-writing. In 1853 he began to give public readings from his own books, and was no less successful as a reader than he had been as a writer. In 1868 he visited America for the second time, and gave readings in the principal cities to immense and delighted audiences. The profits of his tour are said to have been over $200,000. During the last year of his life he was engaged on a novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which he left unfinished. His death was very sudden, and the announcement of it caused universal grief throughout the English-speaking world. His books are too familiar to the reading public to demand enumeration here. Of them all, The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, and David Copperfield are generally esteemed the best; the latter is specially interesting as being largely autobiographical. His later novels, Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend, were less popular than their predecessors. Among English novelists Dickens stands alone; he occupies a field that none other has cultivated, and may justly be esteemed the creator of a new school of fiction. He was a man of strong sympathies, quick to feel and plead for the poor and oppressed, and in his books he has done yeoman service in the work of social and legal reform. His most conspicuous characteristic is humor, natural, rich, and seemingly inexhaustible, and in this quality lies the chief charm of his writings. Yet many pages in Dombey and Son exhibit a not less thorough mastery of pathos. The secret of his success seems to have consisted in his intuitive apprehension of the popular needs and tastes; no other novelist has ever lived who was so thoroughly en rapport with the heart of the people he wrote for them and to them, and they acknowledged his efforts with unbounded good-will and admiration. Brilliant, genial, and uniformly entertaining though they are, Dickens's books have little moral depth or weight: they please, warm, soften, but they are, in effect, material. The extracts, each of which represents fairly his humor, pathos, and descriptive power, are from The Pickwick Papers, Dombey and Son, and American Notes.

MR. PICKWICK'S EXTRAORDINARY DILEMMA.

MR. PICKWICK's apartments in Goswell Street, although on a limited scale, were not only of a very neat and comfortable description, but peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of his genius and observation.

His landlady, Mrs. Bardell—the relict and sole executrix of a deceased custom-house officer was a comely woman of bustling manners and agreeable appearance, with a natural genius for cooking, improved by study and long practice into an exquisite talent. There were no children, no servants, no fowls. The only other inmates of the house were a large man and a small boy; the first a lodger, the second a production of Mrs. Bardell's. The large man was always home precisely at ten o'clock at night, at which hour he regularly condensed himself into the limits of a dwarfish French bedstead in the back parlor; and the infantine sports and gymnastic exercises of Master Bardell were exclusively confined to the neighboring pavements and gutters. Cleanliness and quiet reigned throughout the house; and in it Mr. Pickwick's will was law.

To any one acquainted with these points of the domestic economy of the establishment, and conversant with the admirable regulation of Mr. Pickwick's mind, his appearance and behavior, on the morning previous to that which had been fixed upon for the journey to Eatanswill, would have been most mysterious and unaccountable. He paced the room to and fro with hurried steps, popped his head out of the window at intervals of about three minutes each, constantly referred to his watch, and exhibited many other manifestations of impatience, very unusual with him. It was evident that something of great importance was in contemplation; but what that something was, not even Mrs. Bardell herself had been enabled to discover.

Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at last, as that amiable female approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of the apart

'Why, it's a good long way to the Borough, sir," remonstrated Mrs. Bardell.

Mr. Pickwick relapsed into silence, and Mrs. Bardell resumed her dusting.

"Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at the expiration of a few minutes.

Do you think it's a much greater expense to keep two people than to keep one?

"La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, coloring up to the very border of her cap, as she fancied she observed a species of matrimonial twinkle in the eyes of her lodger, — “la, Mr. Pickwick, what a question!"

"Well, but do you?" inquired Mr. Pickwick.

"That depends," said Mrs. Bardell, approaching the duster very near to Mr. Pickwick's elbow, which was planted on the table, "that depends a good deal upon the person, you know, Mr. Pickwick; and whether it's a saving and careful person, sir."

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That's very true," said Mr. Pickwick; "but the person I have in my eye" (here he looked very hard at Mrs. Bardell) “I think possesses these qualities; and has, moreover, a considerable knowledge of the world, and a great deal of sharpness, Mrs. Bardell; which may be of material use to me."

"La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell; the crimson rising to her cap-border again.

"I do," said Mr. Pickwick, growing energetic, as was his wont in speaking of a subject which interested him, "I do, indeed; and, to tell you the truth, Mrs. Bardell, I have made up my mind."

"You'll think it not very strange now," said the amiable Mr. Pickwick, with a good-humored glance at his companion, "that I never consulted you about this matter, and never mentioned it, till I sent your little boy out this morning,

-

eh?"

Mrs. Bardell could only reply by a look. She had long worshiped Mr. Pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once, raised to a pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes had never dared to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going to propose, a deliberate plan, too, sent her little boy to the Borough to get him out of the way, -how thoughtful, how considerate!

"Well," said Mr. Pickwick, "what do you think?”

"O Mr. Pickwick!" said Mrs. Bardell, trembling with agitation, "you 're very kind, sir."

It will save you a great deal of trouble, won't it? said Mr. Pickwick.

"O, I never thought anything of the trouble, sir," replied Mrs. Bardell; and of course, I should take more trouble to please you then than ever; but it is so kind of you, Mr. Pickwick, to have so much consideration for my loneliness.”