tance. But Cæsar had enemies, whom he little expected, having heaped upon them his favours, and by whose hands he was doomed to fall: some were urged by private motives of revenge, and others by a love of their country, and all swore to perish rather than to see the extinction of the public liberty. Cæsar's death being resolved on, the conspirator's basely assassinated him in the Senate House, where they should only have seized him, and brought him to a trial for usurpation. His death produced general anarchy in the state, and paved the way to the revolution which put an end to Roman liberty, and erected in its place the despotism which reigned ever afterwards.

REFLECTIONS ON EDUCATION.

I CONSIDER a human soul without education like marble in the quarry, which shews none of its inherent beauties, until the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein, that runs through the body of it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to make their appearance. The philosopher, or the hero, the wise, the good, or the great man, very often lie hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light.

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Men's passions operate variously, and appear in different kinds of actions, according as they are more or less rectified and swayed by reason. is therefore an unspeakable blessing to be born in those parts of the world where wisdom and knowledge flourish: though it be confessed, there are,

even in these parts, many poor uninstructed persons, who are but little above the inhabitants of barbarous climes; those who have had the advantage of a more liberal education rise above one another by different degress of perfection. But to return to our former comparison :-A statue lies hid in a block of marble; and the art of the statuary clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone, the sculptor only finds it: what sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul. Thus we see the statue sometimes only begun to be chipped, sometimes rough hewn and but just sketched into a human figure; sometimes we see the man appearing distinctly in all his limbs and features, sometimes we find the figure wrought up to great elegancy; but seldom meet with any to which the hand of a Phidias or Praxiteles could not give several nice touches and finishings.

Discourses of morality, and reflections upon human nature, are the best means we can make use of to improve our minds, and gain a true knowledge of ourselves, and consequently to recover Our souls out of the vice, ignorance, and prejudice which naturally cleave to them. I have all along professed myself a promoter of these great ends; and I flatter myself that I do from day to day contribute something to the polishing of men's minds: at least my design is laudable, whatever the execution may be.-ADDISON.

POMPEY THE GREAT.

A CONTINUAL series of victories entitled Pompey to the name of Great, and for a long time he drew upon himself the admiration of the whole world. At the early age of twenty-three he began his ca

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reer as a general, and fought and conquered as such; in the course of his life he made war in the three parts of the world then known, and always returned home loaded with laurels. By so many victories and conquests he at last became greater than the Romans wished him to be, and, in that high degree of glory to which fortune had raised him, thought it became his dignity to forbear being too familiar with his fellow-citizens, so that he seldom appeared abroad. If he came out of his house, he was always followed by a crowd of his dependents, whose numerous appearance looked more like the court of a great prince than the attendance on a citizen of a republic; not that he made an ill use of his power, but men of a free city saw with displeasure that he affected the manners and ways of a sovereign. Being accustomed from his youth to the command of armies, he could not resume the simplicity of private life: his morals, indeed, were pure and untainted, and he was even justly celebrated for his temperance. No one ever suspected him of covetousness; and, in the pursuit of dignities, he was less fond of the power that is inseparable from them, than of the honours and splendour that surround them. More affected by pomp than ambition, he continually strove to obtain honours that might raise him above all the commanders of his time, and could not bear that any one should pretend to an equa share of glory. It seemed as if he coveted to be the only general of the republic, when he should have contented himself with being the first. This jealousy created him a great many enemies, of whom Cæsar became the most dangerous and formidable; the one could not bear an equal, the other a superior.

Cæsar, more artful, was silently laying the foun

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dation of his own greatness and was incessantly working at the ruin of Pompey, whilst he lulled him into an entire confidence. Pompey at last perceived the snares with which he was surrounded, and could not help blushing when he saw that he had been overreached by a man whose abilities he had thought inferior to his own: he therefore resolved to undo what he conceived to be his own work, and to subvert Cæsar's fortune; flattering himself, that, being master of the senate, nothing could withstand him. Cæsar, on his side, grounded his hopes on a victorious army that adored him, on the bravery of his soldiers who followed him in the greatest dangers with a blind confidence, and on the affection of the people whom he had won over by his excessive liberality. Both these great rivals having taken up arms, they met in the plains of Pharsalia, where Pompey lost the battle, which decided the fate of Rome and of the universe.

THE PATRIOT.

A TRUE patriot is a friend to no party; he inherits a laudable freedom of thought, which unshackles his mind from narrow prejudices, and opens his eyes to the more extensive view of public good. His only aim is the honour, safety, and interest of his country; on this mark he keeps his eye constantly fixed, nor can the allurements of interest, or the power of flattery, ever move him from his point. He finds his true reward in virtue, and is equally insensible to the promising smiles of the great that would tempt, and the meanness of the fiercest tyrants that would force, him to forsake her. He derides the folly, and pities the meanness, of those who forfeit their honesty, to build their happiness on the unstable.

basis of false applause, or the allurements of servile ambition. He fears not censure, when conscious of having performed his duty; nor regards the slander against which innocence itself is not armour proof: he is directed, influenced, and biassed by none; and, whilst he is engaged in his country's service, he thinks the most glorious epithets the world can fix upon him, are those of a rigid, inflexible, honest man.

THE DYING SOLDIER.

IN the heat of the battle of Neerwinde, won by the French, in 1693, Marshal Luxemburgh, who commanded them, seeing a soldier of the guards quitting his corps, said to him, in a threatening tone, " Where dost thou go?"- "My lord, (said the soldier, opening his coat, to shew his wound,) I am going to die a few paces farther off, happy to have exposed and lost my life for my country, and to have fought under so great a General as you."

THE MORNING OF AUTUMN-AN IDYL.

THE first ray of the morning sun had aiready gilded the tops of the mountains, and announced one of the finest days in autumn, when Milo opened his window. Transported at the sight of the beauties of nature, and inspired with a divine enthusiasm, he took up his lyre and sung

"Can I, ye gods! can I express my transports and my gratitude in strains worthy of you? Nature is displayed in all her beauty-her riches are lavished with profusion; joy and gaiety are everywhere visible. The plenty of the season smiles in our vineyards and in our orchards. How beautiful is the country! how charming the variegated scenery of autumn!