him; and after receiving an accurate answer to twenty-three questions out of twenty-four, my friend wanted to know how it was possible for a child to learn so much. I showed the book a well chosen outline, too bare and meagre to be alone very improving-too jejune a skeleton to satisfy the cravings of a really healthy and hungry mind, yet it contained all matters within the comprehension of a child. Fine painters tell their pupils, first draw a correct outline-let your anatomy be correct first; it is easy to fill in, and to colour afterwards. With this little history you have the figure-the bones; but we must galvanize this anatomy and add flesh, substance, vigour, and life; we must make these bones live. Let this outline history represent the long stem of a tree. How are we to fill it up? It looks hollow at present, without leaves or branches. With this kind of drawing the pupil may begin to fill in just when he pleases, provided he takes care that the outline does not become erased, and that the whole figure of his tree is plainly before his eye from first to last. Every one according to his taste or ability may work out and bring into bolder relief and more substantial form any part he pleases. It is immaterial whether he proceeds up or down. Even the idle have a natural disposition to do even the most toilsome work in order to complete and con

No

nect little blanks that disfigure their work. one would finish head, limbs, and breast, and then leave the figure like Tityus, with vitals doomed never to heal. The straight-forward way to fill up your tree would be to take up another larger history; not Hume's, it is too big as yet; but Goldsmith's first. The time required for learning these two will not be as long as would be required for Goldsmith's, without these smaller works as an introduction. The parts which are substantially the same in all will be taken at a glance, and serve pleasantly to refresh memory, rather than exhaust attention. We feel a secret pleasure in our studies when we meet with what we know; it shows we are improving, however gradually, to that state in which we may read whole volumes rather to judge and pronounce, than merely to be taught without discretion. Even Goldsmith gives little more than an outline; but outline is a comparative term: he gives such an outline as deserves to be considered very substantial in comparison with the historical knowledge that most, even of those reputed well informed, really possess. "One half the world does not know how the other half lives," and if it is not generally known how many things half the world lives and dies without enjoying, most truly may this be said of intellectual stores. How few would like to confess the little that they know

at least, the very limited number of correct replies they could at any moment sit down and write, for another's judgment, to questions which were within the capacity even of a child. Supposing ourselves born with minds literally a blank sheet of paper, and that these tablets were required to be laid open for the inspection of our neighbours, should we not feel how little there was to be seen on topics with which we were supposed to be so well acquainted, and how indistinctly and inaccurately even that little was inscribed? Were the minds of many thus laid bare, all that at the moment remained for judgment would seem less the acquisitions of a life than the desultory reading of an hour. Oh! if the pale patient, blistered, bled, and reduced, could so read his physician-if the client with his estate in chancery could so pry into the narrow data on which his lawyer founds such broad conclusions-if those who dream of the unlimited powers of ministerial sagacity could so prove "with what very little wisdom the world is governed," many would agree that the goodness of Providence is in no way more remarkable than in this, that in the wise economy of creation, all disturbing causes are so nicely calculated and balanced, that busy man has even less power to do mischief, than he imagines to do good.

Let none despair because his knowledge seems

little, if it is only accurate. The Germans, who so well understand practical education, say "nothing is so prolific as a little known well." Knowledge increases in a geometrical ratio. The total of the acquisitions of the mind is the continued product, rather than the sum of all it contains.

A little sound and well digested historical knowledge will be always useful; but if the facts are mistaken, the deductions must be as false in matter as they are logical in form; and all arguments will be as absurd as the answer of a sum in arithmetic with an error in the first line. This inaccuracy accounts for the obstinacy of those called wrong-headed men. They are sure their reasoning is right; but as their facts happen to be wrong, they have only the advantage of "method in their madness," and blundering by rule.

This is a topic on which I am the more disposed to dwell, because many, really capable of knowledge, remain in ignorance from two causes. First, from an opinion that any available degree of information is beyond their powers. Secondly, because others appear to know so much that all they can learn will be nothing in comparison. The latter should be consoled with the above observations, and taught to beware of shallow pretenders, and men who always talk on their own topics.

"You are surprised," said Talleyrand, "that I talk so well. Tell me, would it be no advantage to draw an enemy to your own ground, and only fight where your strength is concentrated and your position commanding? That is precisely my art." Men lose no credit by being often silent, if, when they speak, they speak to the purpose. Bacon refines upon this, and says, "He who is silent where he is known to be informed, will be believed to be informed where from ignorance he is silent." Again, Rochefaucauld observes, "The desire to seem learned prevents many from becoming such." Numbers do we meet who make a profession of small talk-not more quaintly than properly so called-for what can show more littleness, what can be more unworthy the serious application of the human mind,—an instrument capable of mastering principles of extensive application, of discerning truth in matters where the harmonious movement of the vast and complicated machinery of social life may be disordered by the prevalence of error,-than to be limited to the petty domestic history of beings of a day, who owe a week's celebrity to the difficulty of filling newspapers a knowledge that must begin almost “de novo every session of parliament. If you study, exclusively devoted to the secret improvement of your own mind, and for the pleasures a well stored mind