the light," yet there is a certain degree of dimness in it, which does not ill agree with the dark pannels and beams by which it is encased and over-hung. At the farther end is a recess, which being almost windowed round, is rendered a little lightsomer than the other parts of the room. It is pleasant to sit in this sequestered nook, the locus benedictus of this ancient place, and view from thence the gallery with its shelves of books, sinking by degrees into duskiness. Still pleasanter is it to resign the mind to those fantasies, which, in a place like this, are wont to rise and steal upon it with a soft but potent fascination— and to suffer the imagination to raise up its visions of the worthies of olden time. To embody and impersonate our forefathers, while we are tarrying in their edifice, and while we are drinking "at the pure wells of English undefiled," to picture to ourselves the worthies who stood and guarded at its fountain. To create and call forth figures for our sport, like those in the Tempest, airy and unsubstantial, clad in ruffs and doublets, and passing by us with stiff mien and haughty stateliness; introducing to our eyes a succession of "maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, and plays," till we can see the whole court of Elizabeth, and the great master of the dance, the graceful Sir Christopher Hatton, "Lead the brawls, While seals and maces dance before him." We are transported visibly to the times when the Euphues and the Arcadia were the light reading of maids of honour, when queens harangued universities in Latin, and kings amused themselves by writing of demonology and tobacco. The theological tomes around us seem to communicate something of their influence to us, and to dip us "five fathom deep" in the controversies of the times. We can almost join in alacrity in the crusade against the Beast "who had filled the world with her abominations," and sally out with bishops for our leaders, and a ponderous folio for our armour of proof. The works around us naturally bring their authors before our eye. We can see Hooker in his quiet country parsonage, beholding "God's blessings spring out of his mother earth, and eating his own bread in peace and privacy." We can see Sidney amongst the shades of Penshurst writing on poetry, with all the enthusiasm of a poet, and proving, that "poesie is full of virtue, breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in the noble name of learning." We can see Bacon in his closet, conceiving in his mighty mind the greatest birth of time, and unbent by misfortune, and undejected by disgrace, illuminating philosophy "with all the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, and depth of judgment." We can see Selden amidst bulls, breviats, antiphoners, and monkish manuscripts, laying up the stores of his vast learning, and awaiting from posterity the rewards which were denied him by a prejudiced clergy. We can be present with Burton, whilst enjoying the delights of voluntary solitariness, and walking alone in some grove, betwixt wood and water, by a brook side, to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, and hear him declaring in ecstasy, "what an incomparable delight it is so to melancholize and build castles in the air." And last, though second to none of his contemporaries, we can be witness to the lonely musings of him, "who untamed in war, and indefatigable in literature, as inexhaustible in ideas as exploits, after having brought a new world to light, wrote the history of the old in a prison." There are If thy footsteps lead thee, good reader, to the venerable place which has suggested these speculations, let us advise thee to amuse thyself with something suitable, and not incongruous with its character. There is a fitness in all things. other places for perusing the ephemeral productions of the day, circulating libraries for novels, and commercial rooms for newspapers. If these be the food for which thy mind is most disposed, to such places be thy walks confined. But go not to the library of Humphrey Cheetham, without opening one of the "time-honoured guests." If classical learning be the study most gratifying to thy palate, take down the Basil edition of Horace, with the notes of eighty commentators, and read through the commentaries on the first ode, thou wilt find it no very easy or dispatchable matter. If divinity be thy pursuit, let one of the compendious folios of Caryl on Job minister to thy amusement, and thus conduce to thy attainment of that virtue of which Job was so eminently the possessor. If Natural History present more attractions to thee than classical learning or divinity, Ulysses Aldrovandus will find thee employment enough, without resorting to the . latter publications of Pennant or Buffon. But should thy thoughts, good reader, have a different direction, and all these studies be less agreeable to thee than the study of light reading, take with thee Pharamond to thy corner, or that edifying and moral work, Mat. Ingelo's Bentivoglio and Urania; and so needest thou have no fear of being too violently interested in thy subject to leave off with pleasure.-Article on the Cheetham Library, Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1821. EARL OF SHAFTESBURY (ANTHONY ASHLEY I am not going to speak with disparagement of the library of reference, but I am going to speak with peculiar admiration and affection of the library of circulation; and for this reason:-because it tends to purify and maintain that which is the very strength of a nation, the very glory of a people ;-among all the ordinances of God, the most merciful and the most amicable-the domestic system of the country. And I hope that many a husband, and many a brother, availing himself of the opportunity offered, will carry the book to his own fireside, and make his wife and his children, or his mother and his sister, partake of his studies, and tend to elevate and purify the female mind; for, depend upon this, that a country may stand for a time the corruption of the male sex; it cannot stand for an instant the utter corruption of the female sex. If the men are corrupted, I have some hope; if the women are corrupted, I am in utter despair. And see how it must be :-is it not the case that for the first eight years of life the children are almost exclusively under the care of the mother? Does not the child imbibe at its mother's knees the first lessons of piety and of prayer? Is it not truth, that many of the most eminent saints and servants of God traced, not to their fathers, but to their mothers, the first institution in religious life? And I myself have heard many a man declare that in his after-life of profligacy, and of sorrow, he had been recalled to a sense of God and of eternity, by remembering in an hour of privation and of difficulty, some holy and happy word that fell from the lips of his blessed and sainted mother. Therefore it is that I rejoice in this lending library. I rejoice in the spirit you now manifest, because I think that you show that you have received my words with kindness and affection, and that you will endeavour to do that which, be assured, will conduce to your own honour, to your domestic happiness, and to the security of the kingdom.-Speech at the Inauguration of the Manchester Free Library, September 2, 1852. ROBERT CHAMBERS. 1802-1871. English literature gives all who can enjoy it a fund of pleasure, of the great amount of which we are not apt to be quite aware till we run over a few of the items. There are the Waverley Novels-in direct contemplation, only the talk of an old-fashioned Scotch gentleman, who died a few years ago-or, in a still more gross consideration, but a few masses of printed paper. Yet, in effect, what are they! To how many |