was capable of doing the like. And, were it not that he had observed her extremely fond of her children, whilst that was agreeable to him, he should have thought it want of affection in her; but he saw it was only her entire obedience and condescension. The people, imagining the children were both put to death, blamed him to the last degree, thinking him the most cruel and worst of men, and showing great compassion for the lady; who, whenever she was in company with the ladies of her acquaintance, and they condoled with her for her loss, she would only say, "It was not my will, but his who begot them." But more years being now passed, and he resolving to make the last trial of her patience, declared, before many people, that he could no longer bear to keep Griselda as his wife, owning that he had done very foolishly and like a young man in marrying her, and that he meant to solicit the pope for a dispensation to take another, and send her away; for which he was much blamed by many worthy persons; but he said nothing in return, only that it should be so. She, hearing this, and expecting to go home to her father, and possibly tend the cattle as she had done before, whilst she saw some other lady possessed of him whom she dearly loved and honoured, was perhaps secretly grieved; but, as she had withstood other strokes of fortune, so she determined resolutely to do now. Soon afterwards Gualtieri had counterfeit letters come to him, as from Rome, acquainting all his people that his holiness thereby dispensed with his marrying another, and turning away Griselda: he had her brought before them, when he said, "Woman, by the pope's leave I may dispose of thee, and take another wife. As my ancestors, then, have been all sovereign princes of this country, and thine only peasants, I intend to keep thee no longer, but to send thee back to thy father's cottage, with the same portion that thou broughtest me, and afterwards to make choice of one more suitable in quality to myself." It was with the utmost difficulty she could now refrain from tears; and she replied, "My lord, I was always sensible that my servile condition would no way accord with your high rank and descent. For what I have been I own myself indebted to Providence and you; I considered it as a favour lent me : you are now pleased to demand it back; I therefore willingly restore it. Behold the ring with which you espoused me; I deliver it to you. You bid me take the dowry back which I brought you: you will have no need for a teller to count it, nor I for a purse to put it in, much less a sumpter-horse to carry it away; for I have not forgotten that you took me naked : and if you think it decent to expose that body, which has borne you two children, in that manner, I am contented; but I would entreat you, as a recompense for my virginity, which I brought you and do not carry away, that you would please to let me have one shift over and above my dowry." He, though ready to weep, yet put on a stern countenance, and said, "Thou shalt have one only then." And, notwithstanding the people all desired that she might have an old gown, to keep her body from shame who had been his wife thirteen years and upwards, yet it was all in vain; so she left his palace in that manner, and returned weeping to her father's, to the great grief of all who saw her. The poor man, never supposing that the prince would keep her long as his wife, and expecting this thing to happen every day, had safely laid up the garments of which she had been despoiled the day he espoused her. He now brought them to her, and she put them on, and went as usual about her father's little household affairs, bearing this fierce trial of adverse fortune with the greatest courage imaginable. The prince then gave it out that he was to espouse a daughter of one of the counts of Panago; and, seeming as if he had made great preparations for his nuptials, he sent for Griselda to come to him, and said to her, "I am going to bring this lady home whom I have just married, and intend to show her all possible respect at her first coming: thou knowest that I have no women with me able to set out the rooms and do many things which

are requisite on so solemn an occasion. As, therefore, thou art best acquainted with the state of the house, I would have thee make such provision as thou shalt judge proper, and invite what ladies thou wilt, even as though thou wert mistress of the house, and, when the marriage is ended, return thee home to thy father's again." Though these words pierced like daggers to the heart of Griselda, who was unable to part with her love for the prince so easily as she had done her great fortune, yet she replied, "My lord, I am ready to fulfil all your commands." She then went into the palace, in her coarse attire, from whence she had but just before departed in her shift, and with her own hands did she begin to sweep, and set all the rooms to rights, cleaning the stools and benches in the hall like the meanest servant, and directing what was to be done in the kitchen, never giving over till everything was in order and as it ought to be. After this was done she invited, in the prince's name, all the ladies in the country to come to the feast. And on the day appointed for the marriage, meanly clad as she was, she received them in the most gentcel and cheerful manner imaginable. Now Gualtieri, who had his children carefully brought up at Bologna (the girl being about twelve years old, and one of the prettiest creatures that ever was seen, and the boy six), had sent to his kinswoman there, to desire she would bring them, with an honourable retinue, to Saluzzo, giving it out, all the way she came, that she was bringing the young lady to be married to him, without letting any one know to the contrary. Accordingly they all three set forwards, attended by a goodly train of gentry, and, after some days' travelling, reached Saluzzo about dinner-time, when they found the whole country assembled, waiting to see their new lady. The young lady was most graciously received by all the women present, and being come into the hall where the tables were all covered, Griselda, meanly dressed as she was, went cheerfully to meet her, saying, "Your ladyship is most kindly welcome." The ladies, who had greatly importuned the prince, though to no purpose, to let Griselda be in a room by herself, or else that she might have some of her own clothes, and not appear before strangers in that manner, were now seated, and going to be served round, whilst the young lady was universally admired, and every one said that the prince had made a good change; but Griselda in particular highly commended both her and her brother. The marquis now thinking that he had seen enough with regard to his wife's patience, and perceiving that in all her trials she was still the same, being persuaded likewise that this proceeded from no want of understanding in her, because he knew her to be singularly prudent, he thought it time to take her from that anguish which he supposed she might conceal under her firm and constant deportment. So, making her come before all the company, he said, with a smile, "What thinkest thou, Griselda, of my bride ?"-"My lord," she replied, "I like her extremely well; and if she be as prudent as she is fair, you may be the happiest man in the world with her: but I most humbly beg you would not take those heart-breaking measures with this lady as you did with your last wife, because she is young, and has been tenderly educated, whereas the other was inured to hardships from a child."

Gualtieri perceiving, that though Griselda thought that person was to be lis wife, that she nevertheless answered him with great humility and sweetness of temper, he made her sit down by him, and said, "Griselda, it is now time for you to reap the fruit of your long patience, and that they who have reputed me to be cruel, unjust, and a monster in nature, may know that what I have done has been all along with a view to teach you how to behave as a wife; and, lastly, to secure my own ease and quiet as long as we live together, which I was apprehensive might have been endangered by my marrying. Therefore I had a mind to prove you by harsh and injurious treatment; and not being sensible that you have ever transgressed my will, either in word or deed, I now seem to have met with that happiness

I desired. I intend, then, to restore in one hour what I have taken away from you in many, and to make you the sweetest recompense for the many bitter pangs I have caused you to suffer. Accept, therefore, this young lady, whom you thought my spouse, and her brother, as your children and mine. They are the same which you and many others believed that I had been the means of cruelly murdering: and I am your husband, who love and value you above all things; assuring myself that no person in the world can be happier in a wife than I am." With this he embraced her most affectionately, when, rising up together, she weeping for joy, they went where their daughter was sitting, quite astonished with these things, and tenderly saluted both her and her brother, undeceiving them and the whole company. At this the women all arose, overjoyed, from the tables, and taking Griselda into the chamber, they clothed her with her own noble apparel, and as a marchioness, resembling such an one even in rags, and brought her into the hall. And being extremely rejoiced with her son and daughter, and every one expressing the utmost satisfaction at what had come to pass, the feasting was prolonged many days. The marquis was judged a very wise man, though abundantly too severe, and the trial of his lady most intolerable; but as for Griselda, she was beyond compare. In a few days the Count de Panago returned to Bologna, and the marquis took Giannucolo from his drudgery and maintained him as his father-in-law, and so he lived very comfortably to a good old age. Gualtieri afterwards' married his daughter to one of equal nobility, continuing the rest of his life with Griselda, and showing her all the respect and honour that was possible. What can we say, then, but that Divine spirits may descend from heaven into the meanest cottages, whilst royal palaces shall produce such as seem rather adapted to have the care of hogs than the government of men?

128.-IT WILL NEVER DO TO BE IDLE.

[THE following paper is extracted from a very remarkable book published ten years ago, entitled 'Self-Formation; or, the History of an Individual Mind: By a Fellow of a College.' The name of the author is known in some literary circles; it was communicated, in professional confidence, to the Editor of 'Half-Hours.' That circumstance renders it necessary that the extract should appear as taken from the work of an anonymous writer. Since the publication of the first edition of Half-Hours,' the author of 'Self-Formation' has died. Self-Formation' did not attract much notice from the periodical dispensers of literary fame; but it has produced a strong impression upon competent judges of the singular ability, not unmixed with eccentricity, and the frank earnestness, with which the progress of "an individual mind," from childhood to maturity, is related. Such revelations are of inestimable value, when we can depend upon them, as we must do in this instance, as accurate pencillings of the intellect in its weakness as well as its strength.]

There is a village called Cherry-Hinton, lying wide of any highway, and within two or three miles of Cambridge. The footpath to it is crossed midway, or thereabouts, by a little brook, and that brook itself, accompanied by a pathway, winds its unambitious way onward to the village, through certain rich corn-fields and solitary meadows. This was my usual walk, my path of contemplation. From some unaccountable neglect it was very little frequented, though in itself as pretty as any out of Cambridge. Scarcely was it trodden, save by a few late and early market-goers, and, haply, now and then a milk woman. Vilia delectant vulgus; the dusty footpath, with the chance of an occasional gossip, was more to the taste of the commonalty than the modest half-worn track, the verdure, the coolness, the sequestration-in a word, the poetry, of my own choice. I was in no danger of interruption by my sporting friends, who would have stared at me in such a spot as if they had seen a ghost, and regarded me ever afterwards as a man under a cloud-as one addicted to strange solitary habits,

I remember one day I had racked myself out of all patience in my attempts to overthink a subject, to master it by the sheer force of thought. In a state of exhaustion and discomfiture I leant against a gate-post, and suffered my sight to rest upon the surface of the stream, and amuse itself by the objects carried down by it. There was an angle of the bank close by, and I indulged myself some time in the idle speculation whether or not the sticks and straws that I saw floating along might chance to double it. My mind was martyred with its distractions, and it occurred to me, by a sudden thought, that here was a way to put an end to them. I marked a particular straw in its descent, and made an earnest vow, that, according as it should pass the promontory or fail to do so, I would persist or not in my thoughtfulness-that, as the straw might rule me, I would strive onwards through a host of pains and penalties, or else retire at once from the contest, and, as the negroes say, "sit down softly," content to be a common man-one of the mere vulgar.

My determination was strong at the moment, so strong that I am by no means sure that it was not decisive, that it has not governed my destinies ever since. Well, I watched my pilot-boat as it came down-Fortunam vehis—so I might have apostrophized it in all Cæsarian dignity. It passed gently on. Here and there it met with an obstruction, but it was only for a moment; it doubled the cape-the Cape of Good Hope, as it really was for me. I received the augury with all acceptance, and returned with a light heart.

Somehow or other, after this incident, whether by force of it or from whatever cause, I got into a better vein. I abandoned once for all the part of the selftormentor. I forbore to force myself. I suffered my mind, like a froward child, to fall asleep, and so recover itself from the excitement of its frowardness. Instead of hallooing on when I had overrun the scent, I drew back quietly and cannily to the point where I was last sure of it-relegens errata retrorsum—and endeavoured to hit it off afresh. I returned from thought to literature, from my late hard taskmaster to my former gentle mistress. I read at large. I roved about at my free will in the wide and varied common of our college library, with no other condition than that of commenting in my own mind, as I went along, upon every book that I might be reading, and every chapter of that book. This was the best restorative process imaginable. I soon got heart of grace upon it, and recruited the exhaustion of my spirits. 1 found it was but lost pains to attempt to add a cubit to my intellectual stature by force of thinking. I took better counsel, and resigned all care of my growth to time, patience, and steady but gentle perseverance. "Chi va piano," say the Italians, va lontano," and I soon found that instead of racking myself to no purpose, as I had done heretofore, I was gradually making way and widening my circle.

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My wayfarings to this village of fruitful, though, for any thing that I could ever learn, fallacious entitlement-this village with a name that waters on one's tongue, though it keeps not the word of promise to one's palate-my pilgrimages, I say, thither were of good account to me through another merc accident. One day, on my return, I was driven to take shelter from a rain-storm in a little hovel by the road-side-a sort of cobbler's stall. The tenant and his son were upon their work, and, after the customary use of greetings, I entered familiarly into talk with them, as indeed I always do, seeing that your cobbler is often a man of contemplative faculty-that there is really something of mystery in his craft. Before I had been with them long, the old man found that there lacked something for his work, and in order to provide it he sent his son out on a job of some five minutes. The interval was a short one, but it was too long for his active impatience; he became uneasy, shuffled about the room, and at last took up a scrap or two of leather and

fell to work upon them. "For," said he, "it will never do, you know, sir, to be idle -not at any rate-I should faint away.'

I happened just then to be in an impressible mood, without occupation myself, and weighed somewhat down by the want of it; accordingly the phrase, the oddness of it in the first place, and still more the sense, made a deep and lasting impression upon me. As soon as the rain had spent itself, I went my way homeward, ruminating and revolving what I had heard, like a curious man over a riddle. I could not have bestowed my thoughts better; the subject concerned me nearly, it went to the very heart of my happiness. Some people are perpetual martyrs to idleness, others have only their turns and returns of it; I was of the latter class —a relunctant impatient idler; nevertheless I was so much within the mischief as to feel that the words came home to me. They stung my conscience severely, they were gall and wormwood for me. Nevertheless, I dwelt so long, albeit perhaps unwillingly, upon the expression, that I became as it were privy to it; I was in a condition to feel and revere its efficacy; I determined to make much of it, to realize it in use, to act it out.

I had heard and read repeatedly that idleness is a very great evil; but the censure did not appear to me to come up to the real truth. I began to think that it was not only a very great evil, but the greatest evil—and not only the greatest one, but in fact the only one-the only mental one, I mean; for, of course, as to morality, a man may be very active, and very viciously active too. But the one great sensible and conceivable evil is that of idleness. No man is wretched in his energy. There can be no pain in a fit; a soldier at the full height of his spirit, and in the heat of contest, is unconscious even of a wound; the orator in the full flow of rhetoric is altogether exempt from the pitifulness of gout and rheumatism. To be occupied, in its first meaning, is to be possessed as by a tenant-and see the significancy, the reality, of first meanings. When the occupation is once complete, when the tendency is full, there can be no entry for any evil spirit: but idleness is emptiness; where it is, there the doors are thrown open, and the devils troop in.

The words of the old cobbler were oracular to me. They were constantly in my thoughts, like the last voice of his victim in those of the murderer; my mind was pregnant with them; the seed was good, and sown in a good soil-it brought forth the fruit of satisfaction.

It is the odds and ends of our time, its orts and offals, laid up, as they usually are, in corners, to rot and stink there, instead of being used out as they should be -these, I say, are the occasions of our moral unsoundness and corruption; a dead fly, little thing as it is, will spoil a whole box of the most precious ointment; and idleness, if it be once suffered though but for a brief while, is sure, by the communication of its listless quality, to clog and cumber the clockwork of the whole day. It is the ancient enemy-the old man of the Arabian Tales. Once take him upon your shoulders, and he is not to be shaken off so casily.

I had a notion of these truths, and I framed my plan after their rules; I resolved that every minute should be occupied by thought, word, or act, or, if none of these, by intention; vacancy was my only outcast, the scape-goat of my proscription. For this my purpose I required a certain energy of will, as indeed this same energy is requisite for every other good thing of every sort and kind; without it we are as powerless as grubs, noisome as ditch-water, vague, loose, and unpredestinate as the clouds above our heads. However, I had sufficient of this energy to serve me for that turn; I felt the excellence of the practice, I was penetrated with it through all my being, I clung to it, I cherished it. I made a point of every thing; I was active, brisk, and animated (oh! how true is that word) in all things that I did, even to the picking up of a glove, or asking the time of day. If I ever felt the