never penetrated, or perchance is in the furrow, toiling for his daily bread.

Tamerlane, afterwards the mighty conqueror of Asia, once, when a young man, rested from his labours, despondent. Musing upou the difficulties of life, his eye fell upon an ant climbing up a steep hill with a grain of corn. Repeatedly it fell back with its burden, and not until the seventieth trial were its efforts successful. The warrior in after life, crowned with the glories of conquest, declared, that in countless emergencies he had been preserved from despair, by the recollection of the perseverance of the ant. When that monarch swept through Asia at the head of his countless legions, like a destroying whirlwind, he rode on the back of that insignificant ant. And when he built his pyramid of seventy thousand human skulls, he might have appropriately crowned it with the ant and its burden.

Robert Bruce, once hopeless that he should liberate Scotland, retired to a hut, and threw himself on a heap of straw, almost overpowered with mental agony; and looking round, he saw a spider endeavouring to swing itself by a thread from one beam to another. Defeat seemed but to add vigour to its efforts; and at the eighth attempt it gained its end. Bruce remembered that he had been defeated just seven times. He considered

the occurrence a presage of his own future success. He called his followers around him, inspired them with fresh courage, and released his country from the grasp of the oppressor.

Helen, the most beautiful woman of her time, having been prevailed upon to abandon her husband, by Paris, the Trojan, and fly with him to Troy; the Trojan war, which lasted ten years, and resulted in the destruction of Troy, was the consequence. Greece sent one hundred ships, and one hundred thousand men to recover her; and some of the most renowned warriors of antiquity were engaged in the enterprise.

"This woman was enticed from her husbandin itself not a very uncommon event-three thousand years ago, and the world, since that time, has been repeating the story. It was upon this subject that the greatest Greek and Latin authors wrote inspiredly. Homer and Virgil found in it their theme. And thus this little occurrence, like the little breeze playing in the harp strings, awoke melody on those human lyres that charms the whole world of soul."

Overlook nothing,' was the motto of Talleyrand. The gnat may sting the lion to madness, and the smallest breath of air blown into a vein, will extinguish life's ethereal lamp, as suddenly as a cannon-ball in the heart. An iron pike has

been driven into a soldier's eye and through his brain, and yet the wound has not proved mortal. But the great anatomist, Spigelius, gathering up the fragments of a broken glass, after his daughter's wedding, scratched his finger slightly, and death was the result. There is a subtle poison, so deadly, that if a single atom of it be placed in the system, it instantly contaminates every fibre of the frame, and palsies the heart. And thus it is with our interior life. It may be innoculated with a virus so minute as to escape our notice, wrapped perhaps in a single word, but which may empoison our days.

66

Nothing, therefore, is so much a trifle that the greatest may not derive advantage from it. Nothing is so small as to be beneath our notice. We would not have men constantly occupying their minds with little objects, and drawing from them mighty inferences. It is the province of small minds to magnify small matters; but it is also the province of large minds to give small things their legitimate place, remembering that the richest gem is but little larger than a grain of sand, and that the whole globe is composed of atoms."

We have pursued this matter thus far, and now may say there is no vainer work than to linger over the "If's," Had's," and "But's," of biography.

*

If Harold had not come wearied to the Battle of Hastings from a well-fought field in the North of England-had Cromwell and Pym shipped to the colonies, taking refuge from the persecution of Charles. But if Charles and James had been shot at the Battle of Worcester-or Richard Cromwell had been equal to his father, these are great if's; but the little ones are still more suggestive.

One inestimable value of all true and great biography is, that it possesses the power of transfusing character into the_reader. Some lives are innoculative; rising from the perusal we feel the ardour of the hero of those pages firing us. This is the result of such strong enthusiasm, that it penetrates every bosom with which it comes in contact, and of the highest orders of mind, this must always be asserted; they had a character,-for how can any works of excellency be performed without a will? And as the German, Novalis, has said, "What is a character but a perfectly matured will? This is the irresistible fascination which attracts us so wonderfully to some books; it is as if from every page the clear bright eye looked out upon us,—we are magnetised. Thus it is when admiration,

* I am aware that considerable doubt rests on the legend that they attempted to do so, and were prevented by especial order.

wonder, emulation, are roused within us, another soul takes possession of our own; this will be in proportion as the character delineated is clear, distinct, and commanding; and the value of biography in this particular, can scarcely be overestimated. For the great cause of failures in life, of all weakness, of much sin and suffering, is the want of character; few men are trained to a proper sense of their individual value, of their own proper power. Indeed, in civilized society we note two classes of men. One may be described as seals formed and made to stamp themselves upon men, institutions, and things. Another class, as wax, fitted only to receive impressions; such men are ever telling us that the age of romance is gone; great things might have been done in another age, but they cannot be done now.

"

Heroism, bravery, chivalry, like the mastodons and the dodo of old geologic periods, have left the earth; they do not walk abroad, they are entombed. "Had I," such people are wont to say, "Had I but been born then, rather than now," and then follow a long train of if's and but's. These are characterless people; to them it seems as if all the difficulties of life met precisely in their way; they have no sense of self-reliance; they are passive to every stream; they bow to every opinion; the last is still the best, the truest, the