CULTURE AND SACRIFICE.

The instruction of the world has been carried on by perpetual sacrifice. A grand army of teachers, authors, artists, schoolmasters, professors, heads of colleges-have been through ages carrying on war against ignorance; but no triumphal procession has been decreed to it, nor spoils of conquered provinces have come to its coffers; no crown imperial has invested it with pomp and power. In lonely watch-towers the fires of genius have burned, but to waste and consume the lamp of life, while they gave light to the world. It is no answer to say that the victims of intellectual toil, broken down in health and fortune, have counted their work a privilege and joy. As well deny the martyr's sacrifice because he has joyed in his integrity. And many of the world's intellectual benefactors have been martyrs. Socrates died in prison as a public malefactor; for the healing wisdom he offered his people, deadly poison was the reward. Homer had a lot, so obscure at least, that nobody knew his birthplace; and, indeed, some modern critics are denying that there ever was any Homer.

Plato traveled back and forth from his home in Athens to the court of the Syracuse tyrant, regarded indeed and feared, but persecuted and in peril of life; nay, and once sold for a slave. Cicero shared a worse fate. expressed it,

Dante all his life knew, as he

"How salt was a stranger's bread,

How hard the path still up and down to tread,
A stranger's stairs."

Copernicus and Galileo found science no more profitable than Dante found poetry. Shakspeare had a home, but too poorly endowed to stand long in his name after he left it; the income upon which he retired was barely two or three hundred pounds a year, and so little did his contemporaries know or think of him that the critics hunt in vain for the details of his private life. The mighty span of his large honors shrinks to an obscure myth of life in theatres in London or on the banks of the Avon.

A LITERARY SCREW.

An English paper says that Sharon Turner, author of the History of the Anglo-Saxons, who received three hundred pounds a year from Government as a literary pension, wrote his third volume of his Sacred History of the World upon paper which did not cost him a farthing. The copy consisted of torn and angular fragments of letters and notes, of covers of periodicals, gray, drab, or green, written in thick round hand ɔver a small print; of shreds of curling-paper, unctuous with pomatum of bear's grease, and of white wrappers in which hist proofs had been sent from the printers. The paper, sometimes as thin as a bank-note, was written on both sides, and was so sodden with ink, plastered on with a pen worn to a stump, that hours were frequently wasted in discovering on which side of it certain sentences were written. Men condemned to work on it saw their dinner vanish in illimitable perspective, and firstrate hands groaned over it a whole day for tenpence. One poor fellow assured the writer of that paper that he could not earn enough upon it to pay his rent, and that he had seven mouths to fill besides his own. In the hope of mending matters in some degree, slips of stout white paper were sent frequently with the proofs; but the good gentleman could not afford to use them, and they never came back as copy. What an inveterate miser this old scribbler must have been, notwithstanding his pension and his copyrights!

DRYDEN AND HIS PUBLISHER.

When Dryden had finished his translation of Virgil, after some self-deliberation, he sent the MS. to Jacob Tonson, requiring for it a certain sum, which he mentioned in a note. Tonson was desirous of possessing the work, but meanly wished to avail himself of Dryden's necessities, which at that time, were particularly urgent. He therefore informed the poet that he could not afford to give the sum demanded. Dryden, in reply, sent the following lines descriptive of Tonson:

With leering look, bull-faced, and freckled fair, With two left legs, with Judas-colored hair, And frowsy pores that taint the ambient air. When they were delivered to Tonson, he asked if Mr. Dryden had said any thing more. "Yes," answered the bearer: "he said, 'Tell the dog that he who wrote these lines can write more like them.'" Jacob immediately sent the money.

Personal Sketches and Anecdotes.

ANECDOTE OF WASHINGTON.

DURING General Washington's administration, he almost daily attended his room, adjoining the Senate-chamber, and often arrived before the Senate organized. On one occasion, but before his arrival, Gouverneur Morris and some other senators were standing together, conversing on various topics, and, among them, the natural but majestic air of General Washington, when some one observed there was no man living who could take a liberty with him. The sprightly and bold Morris remarked, "I will bet a dozen of wine I can do that with impunity." The bet was accepted.

Soon after, Washington appeared, and commenced an easy and pleasant conversation with one of the gentlemen, at a little distance from the others. While thus engaged, Morris, stepping up, in a jocund manner, familiarly tapped Washington on the shoulder, and said,

"Good morning, old fellow!"

The General turned, and merely looked him in the face, without a word, when Morris, with all his assumed effrontery, stepped hastily back, in evident discomposure, and said :—

"Gentlemen, you have won the bet. I will never take such a liberty again!"

The writer obtained this fact from a member of the Senate, who witnessed the occurrence.

ANECDOTE OF LAFAYETTE.

Shortly after Lafayette's second return from America, he was at Versailles when the king was about to review a division of troops. Lafayette was invited to join in the review. He was dressed in the American uniform, and was standing by the side of the Duc de Condé, when the king, in his tour of conversation with the officers, came to him, and, after speaking on several topics, asked him questions about his uniform and the military costume in the United States. The king's attention was attracted by a little medal, which was attached to his coat in the manner in which the insignia of orders are usually worn in Europe; and he asked what it was. Lafayette replied that it was a symbol which it was the custom of the foreign officers in the American service to wear, and that it bore a device. The king asked what was the device: to which Lafayette answered that there was no device common to all, but that each officer chose such as pleased his fancy. "And what has pleased your fancy?" inquired the king. "My device," said the young general, pointing to his medal, " is a liberty-pole standing on a broken crown and sceptre." The king smiled, and, with some pleasantry about the republican propensities of a French marquis in American uniform, turned the conversation to another topic. Condé looked grave, but said nothing.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

The name Napoleon, being written in Greek characters, will form seven different words, by dropping the first letter of each in succession:

Ναπολέων, Απολέων, Πόλεων, Ολεων, Λέων, 'Εών, "Ων. These words make a complete sentence, meaning, Napoleon, the destroyer of whole cities, was the lion of his people.

MILTON AND NAPOLEON.

Napoleon Bonaparte declared to Sir Colin Campbell, who had charge of his person at the Isle of Elba, that he was a great admirer of Milton's Paradise Lost, and that he had read

it to some purpose, for that the plan of the battle of Austerlitz he borrowed from the sixth book of that work, where Satan brings his artillery to bear upon Michael and his angelic host with such direful effect :

:

"Training his dev'lish enginery impaled

On every side with shadowing squadrons deep
To hide the fraud."

This new mode of warfare appeared to Bonaparte so likely to succeed, if applied to actual use, that he determined upon its adoption, and succeeded beyond expectation. By reference to the details of that battle, it will be found to assimilate so completely with Milton's imaginary fight as to leave no doubt of the assertion.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF NAPOLEON.

Captain Maitland gives the following description of the person of Napoleon, as he appeared on board the Bellerophon, in 1815:

He was then a remarkably strong, well-built man, about five feet seven inches high, his limbs particularly well formed, with a fine ankle and a very small foot, of which he seemed very vain, as he always wore, while on board the ship, silk stockings and shoes. His hands were also small, and had the plumpness of a woman's rather than the robustness of a man's. His eyes were light gray, his teeth good; and when he smiled, the expression of his countenance was highly pleasing; when under the influence of disappointment, however, it assumed a dark and gloomy cast. His hair was a very dark brown, nearly approaching to black, and, though a little thin on the top and front, had not a gray hair amongst it. His complexion was a very uncommon one, being of a light sallow color, different from any other I ever met with. From his being corpulent, he had lost much of his activity.

HIS OPINION OF SUICIDE.

In the Journal of Dr. Warden, Surgeon of the Northumberland, the British frigate that conveyed Napoleon to St. Helena,