Nightingale and Throstle, whom he had met with on his journey, and who longed to re-visit once again their home. Foreign workmen too, followed in his retinue, painters and tapestry-hangers, for he had learned from Princess Throstle in how forlorn and sad a state was her father's kingdom; and as it was his delight everywhere to bring life and joy, he set them busily to work to restore to the grey and dingy-looking palace its former beauty. The prince himself superintended the workmen, and as he was loved by all, wherever he bent his gentle sunny eyes, the work proceeded with surprising speed. In a short time the palace of the mournful monarch seemed as if furnished anew, and mirth and pleasure reigned once more throughout. The Wood-king donned again his green mantle and amused himself, as had been his wont, with singing and with music, so as to forget his grief for the pretty damsel. He ordered all the bells through the land to be rung to call together his subjects, who seemed to have deserted him; for he wished to hold a great and splendid festival to the honor of Prince May. Meanwhile the prince went wandering about the country, and there he chanced to find the benumbed traveller, lying cold and stiff beneath some withered leaves. He thought that she was dead, and he mourned over the untimely fate of one so lovely, but as he looked at her with his bright and sunny eyes, her heart gently began to beat again, and Prince May joyfully took her in his arms to carry her to the Wood-king's court. Then Rivuletta quite returned to life again, and she opened her pretty mouth to give thanks to her deliverer. Oh what joy to the prince and to the whole court, that she was at length released from the potent charm, and feasts on feasts were given by the king to celebrate her liberation. But no, she could not tarry long, and almost as soon as she regained the free use of her limbs she bade adieu to the Woodking and his daughters, and after promising to return again she set out upon her journey. But Prince May was loth to leave her, and as he could not detain her longer at the court, he resolved to accompany her on her journey. And Rivuletta was again as beautiful as before, her eyes were as blue and clear as they were wont to be, and she appeared to have forgotten every sorrow as she hung proudly on the arm of the gay and brilliant prince, who continually adorned himself and his lovely companion with flowers ever fresh. And now they visited many courts, and were everywhere received with great rejoicings. But one day as the prince was preparing a fresh garland to deck her breast, she strayed from him into an unknown region, and there she lost her road, and kept wandering ever farther and farther, without being able to find her way back. Then night came on, and poor Rivuletta ran on and on in haste and hurry, and she knew not that the wide sea lay spread out at her feet. She plunged in, and was seen no more! Prince May, when he missed his much-loved Rivuletta, wandered ceaselessly from place to place, and wherever he came he prepared the gayest festivals, as he still hoped to find his little friend and shew her all this splendour. Above all he nurtured the most lovely flowers, especially her own favorite Forget-me-not, for he thought that should Rivuletta ever pass the place, they would indicate whither he had gone, and so they might meet again at last. But as yet he has not found her, and for this reason he often suddenly leaves the most festive scenes, to go and weep upon his lonely road. S. X. PRECEPTIVE BIOGRAPHY. Ir is by no means easy to estimate correctly the great men of former ages. Knowledge is, comparatively speaking, so new a thing, and the circumstances under which we live are so different from those which obtained only a few centuries since, that we often come to very wrong conclusions as to the amount of thought, originality, and mental prowess they possessed. Yet we believe it would not be far from the truth were we to say that in many instances they were vastly before us in all that constitutes real energy of mind; or that compared with them, the noblest characters now living deserve but very qualified admiration. We are sometimes, in fact, almost tempted to say of our own age, that it wants originality without eccentricity. Great men we have, but in some instances they are almost exaggerated into caricatures,—in others, they are like giants gone mad. Our deep thinkers think so deeply, that no one can understand them; our theorists speculate too recklessly, and our practical men have too much of a cold utilitarian spirit. But even such as these are of comparatively rare occurrence: by far the greatest number of our public characters in the worlds of art, science, and literature, are only copyists, amalgamators, or diluters of other men's thinkings. Our literature bears special evidence of this. Books are written-not out of the heart's abundance, so much as of the pocket's poverty. It is the author that sells and is read-not his work. A century or two ago, authorship was the accident; and a fruitful subject, the necessity. But times are now so changed, that the writer is made everything, and his subject nothing. A man who has written for the press on any matter whatever, is now thought competent to write on any other; not because he has made it his careful study, but simply because he can wield, and has already wielded, a pen to some profit. To contemplate, therefore, the great minds of other days, seems at this time a refreshment more than usually delightful. We like to dwell on the prowess of those mental and moral Benaiahs who have a name among the mighties of past generations—who can combat with lions and lion-like men, and slay them with their own spears-men of whom it may with truth be said, as of the subject of this memoir, "He never did anything little.” “To analyze the nature, trace the relations, discover the uses, and enquire into the reason of things,' is an exercise fraught with delight. What? How? Why ?—here is a triple paradise.”* Yet how few attempt to pass its portal. How few live up to their intellectual privileges—how few walk worthy of their high calling as men, as citizens, as christians. How few give that prominence to deep and earnest and holy thought which it unquestionably deserves. And yet this habit is the key to all true greatness. All other things are the mere tools and appliances by which it works—the ciphers to which, as the initial unit, it gives value. Mere men of the world have wrought wonders by it. Of how much more account is it if sanctified, renewed, controlled, and directed by the Spirit of all truth, witnessing directly with our spirits, or breathing through the all-informing pages of the Word of God. *Thomas's Crisis of Being. p. 72. We love to see a great Christian The noblest creature seen below, But it is too often matter of regret that so many Christians are little in their mental standing as contrasted with the children of this world. They have therefore much to learn from them. This, if any apology be needed, must be ours, for selecting as the subject of our preceptive biographies, such characters as those we are about to descant upon; men with whom the revealed wisdom of God in Christ was assuredly not "the principal thing," whatever may have been its influence, direct or indirect, in moulding and bringing out the majesty of mind so conspicuous in the present narrative. A large-boned man of middle size, rather spare but broadshouldered, his complexion good, his forehead square, and somewhat projecting; his eyes hazel, and rather small; his brows with little hair; his nose flattened by a blow given him in youth; his lips thin, and his cranium large in proportion to his facesuch is the outward portraiture of the individual whose inner soul we are anxious to develop and exhibit. What can the reader make of him? Beyond his projecting forehead and large cranium, there seems to be nothing here to indicate extraordinary genius. But the pencil has done more for him than the pen. The best engravings figure him as a real, earnest, unmistakeable, intellectual, yet deeply sensitive, piece of humanity, his crisply curling locks receding from his noble forehead, a rich flowing beard surrounding and almost hiding his "thin lips ;" and his thoughtful features lined and furrowed with the indications of a mind constantly at work, and yet working so easily that, to use his own expression, it was learning and at school almost to the close of a life protracted to the verge of fourscore years and ten. Yet this was the individual of whom one of our English illuminati of the last century-the friend of Dr. Johnson and his literary associates—a scholar of no mean standing, and an artist of surpassing merit, thus expressed himself, "I would tread in the steps of that great master: to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man." The remarkable man, thus idolized by one who is himself an idol in his own sphere at the present day, was born in Tuscany on the 6th March, 1474. Fascinated by art at an early age, he executed a fac-simile of a picture in his thirteenth year, which he presented to the owner instead of the original, who did not discover the deception till a confidant of the artist began to laugh. He afterwards studied under an instructor in design, and at fifteen drew an outline round a drawing by his master which showed its defects and his own superiority. Studying in a garden supplied by the celebrated Lorenzo de Medici with antique statues and other forms, he saw a student modelling figures in clay, and emulous of excelling in the same branch, begged a piece of marble, and the use of implements, from one of the workmen employed in making ornaments for Lorenzo's library. With these he imitated an old head, or mask, of a laughing faun, supplying the deficiencies effected by time, by his own invention, and making other additions. Lorenzo saw it, and good humouredly remarked, "You have restored to the old faun all his teeth, but don't you know that a man of such an age has generally lost some?" As soon as Lorenzo departed, he broke a tooth from the upper jaw, and drilled a hole in the gum to denote that it had decayed. Lorenzo at his next visit was delighted by this docility, and assigned him an apartment in his palace for a workroom, seated him at his table, and introduced him to the men of rank and talent who daily resorted to Lorenzo, as the munificent patron of learning and the arts. He justified this distinction by laboring with intense ardour. At seventeen years of age he sculptured in brass the battle of Hercules with the Centaurs; a work of which he said at seventy, "When I see it now, I repent that I did not entirely devote myself to sculpture." His reputation increased with his application, for application brought him nearer to excellence. By the merit of a sleeping Cupid from his chisel, which was stained and buried by a dealer to be dug up as an antique, and purchased by cardinal Giorgio under the persuasion that it was one, he was invited to Rome." In these early indications of talent, there are materials for a volume. The greatness of the man was eminently fore |