that accurately measured the hours, by means of a common penknife, a tool in everybody's hand; but then Everybody is not a Ferguson. An eminent foreign savant once called upon Dr. Wollaston, and required to be shown over his laboratories, in which science had been enriched by so many important discoveries, when the doctor took him into a little study, and pointing to an old tea-tray on the table containing a few watch-glasses, test-papers, a small balance, and a blow-pipe, said, "That is all the laboratory that I have!" Stothard learned the art of combining colours by closely studying butterflies' wings; he would often say that no one knew what he owed to those tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn-door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas. Bewick first practised drawing on the cottage walls of his native village, which he covered with his sketches in chalk; and Benjamin West made his first brushes out of a cat's tail. Ferguson laid himself down in the fields at night in a blanket and made a map of the heavenly bodies by means of a thread with small beads on it stretched between his eye and the stars. Franklin first robbed the thunder-cloud of its lightning by means of a kite made with two cross-sticks and a silk handkerchief. Watt made his first model of the condensing steam-engine out of an old anatomist's syringe, used to inject the arteries previous to dissection. Gifford worked his first problem in mathematics when a cobbler's apprentice, upon small scraps of leather, which he beat smooth for the purpose; whilst Rittenhouse, the astronomer, first calculated eclipses on his plough-handle. In like manner, Professor Faraday, Sir Humphry Davy's scientific successor, made his first experiments in electricity by means of an old bottle, while he was still a working bookbinder. And it is a curious fact that Faraday was first attracted to the study of chemistry by hearing one of Sir Humphry Davy's lectures on the subject at the Royal Institution. A gentleman, who was a member, calling one day at the shop where Faraday was employed in binding books found him poring over the article "Electricity," in an Encyclopædia placed in his hands to bind. The gentleman, having made enquiries, found he was curious about such subjects, and gave him an order of

admission to the Royal Institution, where he attended a course of four lectures, delivered by Sir Humphry. He took notes of the lectures which he showed to the lecturer, who acknowledged their scientific accuracy and was surprised when informed of the humble position of the reporter. Faraday then expressed his desire to devote himself to the prosecution of chemical studies, from which Sir Humphry at first endeavoured to dissuade him but the young man persisting, he was at length taken into the Royal Institution as an assistant; and eventually the mantle of the brilliant apothecary's boy fell upon the worthy shoulders of the equally brilliant bookbinder's apprentice.—SMILES' Self Help.

"WITH BRAINS, SIR!"

"PRAY, Mr. Opie, may I ask what you mix your colours with?" said a brisk fine art student to the great painter. "With brains, sir!" was the gruff reply, and the right one. It did not give much of what we call information, but it was enough to awaken the inquirer. Many other artists, when asked such a question, would have set about detailing the mechanical composition of such and such colours, in such and such proportions, rubbed so and so ; or perhaps they would have shown him how they laid them on; but even this would leave them at the critical point. Opie preferred going to the quick and the heart of the matter: "With brains, sir!"

Sir Joshua Reynolds was taken by a friend to see a picture. He was anxious to admire it, and he looked it over with a keen and careful eye. "Capital composition; correct drawing; the colour, tone, excellent; but-but-it wants-it wants-That!" snapping his fingers; and, wanting "That," though it had every thing else, it was worth nothing.

Again, Etty was appointed teacher of the students of the Royal Academy; having been preceded by a clever, talkative, scientific expounder of æsthetics, who delighted to tell the young men how everything was done; how to copy this, and how to express that.

A student came up to the new master : "How should I do this, sir?" "Suppose you try." Another: "What does this mean, Mr. Etty?" "Suppose you look." "But I have looked." "Suppose you look again." And they did try, and they did look, and looked again; and they saw and achieved what they never could have done, had the "How" or the "What" been told them or done for them. In the one case, sight and action were immediate, exact, intense, and secure: in the other, mediate, feeble, and lost as soon as gained. Seeing is the passive state, and at best only registers; looking is a voluntary act it is the man within coming to the window.

So, young friends, bring Brains to your work, and mix everything with them, and them with everything. Let "Tools and a man to use them" be your motto. Stir up, direct, and give free scope to Sir Joshua's "That," and try again and again, and look at everything for yourselves.-Dr. Brown.

USE YOUR EYES.

MANY men of great talent are unsuccessful because they go through the world with their syes shut. This is well illustrated in a story told in the Rambler, entitled: Observation, or the Lost Camel.-A Dervis, while journeying alone in the desert, was met by two merchants. "You have lost a camel," said he to them. "We have," they replied.

"Was the camel blind in his right eye, and lame in one of his legs?" said the Dervis. "He was," answered the merchants. "Had he lost a front tooth?" said the Dervis. "He had," was the reply.

"And was he not loaded with honey on one side, and wheat on the other?" "Most certainly," was the answer; "and as you have seen him so lately you can, doubtless, tell us where he may be found."

"My friends," said the Dervis, "I have neither seen your camel, nor even heard of him, except from you."

"A strange assertion, indeed!" said the merchants; "but where are the jewels which formed a part of his burden?"

"I have neither seen your camel, nor your jewels,” replied the Dervis.

On

He was now seized by them, and hurried before the Cadi. the strictest examination, however, no evidence was found against him, either of falsehood or of theft.

They were then about to proceed against him as a sorcerer, when the Dervis, with perfect composure, thus addressed the court :

"I have been greatly amused with your proceedings, and I confess there have been some grounds for your suspicions; but I have passed many years in this desert, and even here I find ample scope for observation.

"I saw the track of a camel and I knew it had strayed from its owner, because there was no mark of any human footstep to be seen on the same route.'

"I perceived the animal was blind in one eye, as it had cropped the herbage only on one side of its path.

"I knew that it was lame, from the faint impression that one of its feet had made in the sand.

"I concluded that the camel had lost one tooth, because wherever it grazed the herbage was left uncropped in the centre of the bite.

"As to what composed the burden of the beast, I had only to look at the ants, carrying away the wheat on the one side, and at the clustering flies that were devouring the honey on the other."

A North American Indian, upon returning home to his cabin, discovered that his venison, which had been hung up to dry, was stolen. After taking his observations on the spot, he set off in pursuit of the thief, whom he tracked through the woods.

Meeting with some persons on his route, he inquired if they had seen a little, old white man, with a short gun, and accompanied by a small dog with a bob-tail. They answered in the affirmative; and upon the Indian assuring them that the man thus described had stolen his venison, they desired to be informed

how he was able to give so minute a description of a person whom, it appeared, he had never seen.

The Indian replied, "The thief, I know, is a little man, by his having heaped up a pile of stones to stand upon, in order to reach the venison from the height at which I hung it while standing on the ground; that he is an old man, I know by his short steps, which I have traced over the dead leaves in the woods; and that he is a white man, I know by his turning out his toes when he walks, which an Indian never does. His gun I know to be short, from the mark which the muzzle made by rubbing the bark of a tree against which it had leant; that his dog is small, I know by his track; and that he has a bob-tail, I discovered by the mark it made in the dust where he was sitting, while his master was busied about my meat."

The Duke of Wellington used to tell the following anecdote :"When I was following a rajah in India we came to a great sandy plain, to cross which was impossible, with the enemy's cavalry hovering about us. The spies said there was a river in front which I could not cross, as it had no bridges, and that I must therefore take a détour to the right or left. I, however, took the cavalry, and pushed on to the river, till I was near enough to take a view of it with a spy-glass, when I saw that there were two villages opposite each other, on different sides of the river. I immediately said to myself, 'People would never be fools enough to build two towns immediately opposite on a great river, if they could not get from one to the other.' So I moved on, and sure enough there was a bridge between the towns. We crossed it and licked the rajah."

HABIT.

LORD BROUGHAM says:-I trust everything, under God, to habit, upon which, in all ages, the lawgiver as well as the schoolmaster has mainly placed his reliance; habit, which makes everything easy, and casts all difficulties upon a deviation from a wonted course. Make sobriety a habit, and intemperance will be hateful; make