which may be followed. The main object is to acquire habits of steadiness and diligence; and for this it is desirable to undergo that amount of initiatory discipline, without which the youth goes into the world like a ship leaving its harbour without a rudder.

'Higher, higher, will we climb,

Up to the mount of glory,

That our names may live through time

In our country's story;

Happy, when her welfare calls,

He who conquers, he who falls.

Deeper, deeper, let us toil

In the mines of knowledge;
Nature's wealth and learning's spoil
Win from school and college;
Delve we there for richer gems

Than the stars of diadems.

Onward, onward, may we press

Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,

Excellence true beauty.

Minds are of celestial birth,

Make we then a heaven of earth.

Closer, closer, let us knit

Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside comforts sit,
In the wildest weather.
O! they wander wide who roam
For the joys of life from home.'

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

BUSINESS MAXIMS.

W

HATEVER be the business to which you attach yourself, pursue it earnestly, and endeavour to take a pleasure in doing so. But business is to be conducted as business, not as if it were a thing to amuse yourself and others.

Exactness in calculations, prudent forethought, unswerving integrity, liberality in dealings without fear or favour, are leading principles in business. All with whom you have any transactions are to be treated alike-the person whom you scarcely know and the oldest friend. In conducting business, feelings are unknown. Be as courteous as you please; but keep in mind that business resolves itself into pecuniary obligations. You buy with reference to sales, and you sell because you have to pay for what you buy, besides supporting a necessary expenditure.

To buy in the cheapest, and sell in the dearest market, is a well-known maxim in commerce. The necessities of his condition compel a merchant to attend to this important maxim. Pressed on all sides by competition, he is obliged in self-defence to buy as cheaply, and make as good a choice as possible; yet, with all his efforts to get a high price in return, he may be compelled to sell on terms which yield a bare remuneration for trouble and risk.

The general supply and demand regulate wages, prices, all commercial transactions between country and country. If the supply of an article be greater than is wanted, prices fall, and when demand exceeds supply, prices rise. Every attempt to

factitiously force up wages or prices in opposition to this regulating principle, must either fail, or be mischievous if temporarily successful. Freedom of labour, freedom of commerce, and free competition, are now recognised as principles at the basis of national and individual prosperity. The age of monopolies is past.

Competition in business has the effect of stimulating one person to outdo another, and is so far advantageous in manufacturing and commercial concerns. Yet, competition is injurious when exercised within too narrow a field. A small town, for example, may give employment to two drapers, but for six the business would be so inadequate, that some of the competitors must suffer considerably, and great will be the misexpenditure of time and capital.

There is not a little of this mistaken competition, in consequence of an unwillingness to remove to new and wider fields of exertion. You will be on your guard against this folly. Seek out places where business can be conducted to advantage. Do not attach yourself so unreservedly to any town or city in particular as to make you blind to its deficiencies. In a large variety of instances, success is secured only by pushing boldly off from the natal home, and fixing on a place more suitable for professional enterprise.

In business, every transaction is to be judged on its own merits, and without rashness. Be decisive, but cool. When considering the policy of entering upon or refraining from a piece of business, try to attain a clear conception of results either way. Vagueness of ideas-a loose opinion that things will go right some way or other-is the mark of a feeble mind. To this source are we to trace many of those headlong speculations and that ruinous extravagance under which so many men sink. If you have not good and sufficient reasons for entering on a commercial enterprise, let it alone. There is sometimes a virtue in doing nothing.

Business is to be conducted with strict honour between man

and man. What you undertake, you are scrupulously to perform. In commercial correspondence, private affairs are not mentioned; as already hinted at, friendship is not to be mixed up with business.

Of every letter sent in business, a copy is to be kept, for the sake of reference in case of dispute; on which account, any intrusion of private circumstances in business-letters is objectionable.

Accuracy in book-keeping is of the highest consequence in business. Any one who keeps his books in a slovenly manner, may almost be said to be on the way to ruin; for without correctness in accounts, there can be no proper balance-sheet; and without a carefully made up balance-sheet at the end of every year, no man can tell exactly how his affairs stand.

Whatever be your profession, stick to it if at all eligible; and duly interspersing your attendance at business with literary and other recreations, let it not be forgotten that duties come first, and pleasure afterwards.

What is proper to be done, should be done quickly. At whatever expense of comfort, leave nothing till to-morrow that can be done to-day; and if you wish to make sure that a thing of moment is done well, and in proper time, do it at once yourself.*

* Thomas Hamilton, a sagacious Scottish judge at the beginning of the seventeenth century, attained great wealth, and was created Earl of Haddington by James VI., who in ordinary conversation facetiously called him Tam o' the Cowgate, in consequence of the earl's residence being in the Cowgate of Edinburgh. When James visited Scotland in 1617, he found the old statesman very rich, and was informed that the people believed him to be in possession of the philosopher's stone; there being no other feasible mode of accounting for his immense wealth, which rather seemed the effect of supernatural agency than of worldly prudence and talent. King James, quite tickled with the idea of the philosopher's stone, and of so enviable a talisman having fallen into the hands of a Scottish judge, was not long in

In nearly all professions, there are junior and senior departments, through which a young man needs to work his way up. And how is this done? Beginning, perhaps, as an assistant, he takes pains to be obliging, assiduous, and trustworthy, and so earns a reputation which is favourably remembered by superiors. In some large commercial concerns, all the clerks who regularly come to business before a certain hour in the morning -the evidence of which is the inscription of their names in a book as they enter the office-are advanced accordingly; a premium being thus paid on diligence.

letting his friend and gossip know of the story which he had heard respecting him. Whether the Lord President was offended at the imputation, has not been recorded; but it is probable that he took it in good part, as he immediately invited the king, and the rest of the company present, to come to his house in the Cowgate next day, when he would both do his best to give them a good dinner, and lay open to them the whole mystery of the philosopher's stone. This agreeable invitation was of course accepted; and the next day accordingly saw his castle thronged with the gay and gorgeous figures of England's king and courtiers, all of whom the president feasted to their hearts' content. After dinner, the king reminded him of his philosopher's stone, and expressed the utmost anxiety to be speedily made acquainted with so rare a treasure, when the pawky lord addressed his majesty and the company in a short speech, concluding with this information, that his whole secret lay in two simple and familiar maxims-" Never put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day-nor ever trust to another's hand what your own He might have added, from the works of an illustrious

can execute." contemporary,

"This only is the witchcraft I have used."

The guests, who expected to find the earl's talisman of a more tangible character, were perhaps disappointed that the whole matter turned out to be, like the subject of Hamlet's reading, mere "words; " but the king, who could appreciate a good saying, took up the affair more blithely, and complimented his host upon the means he had employed in the construction of his fortune; adding, that these admirable apophthegms should henceforth be proverbial, under the appellation of " TAM o' THE COWGATE'S PHILOSOPHER'S STONE."-Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, vol. i. 1832.

T