Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

LESSON CVI.—APRIL THE SIXTEENTH.

Buffon.

On this day, 1788, died, in France, in the 81st year of his age, the far-famed Count de Buffon, a man of uncommon genius and surprising eloquence, the most astonishing interpreter of nature that perhaps ever existed, and often styled the "French Pliny." He spent fourteen hours every day in study; and when we examine the extent of his knowledge and the number of his works, we may wonder at his having executed so much even in that time.

He was very regular in the distribution of his time, and passed a life of great industry. Composing was a difficult task to him, and his writings passed through a number of revisals before they were made public. Indeed, style was one of the capital objects of his admiration. He could not bear the least deviation from accuracy and propriety in the use of language; and hence he was a severe censor of poetry, which he had attempted in his youth, but soon quitted for prose. A nice and just regard to his fame made him destroy every paper which he thought useless or unfinished, so that he left behind him none of the rubbish that crowds the desks of so many great authors, and furnishes matter for posthumous degradation.

In reading his writings to others, of which he was fond, if he discovered that the hearer was in the least embarrassed about the meaning of a passage, he directly altered it; and he paid ready attention to every critical remark. He spoke with rapture of the pleasures derived from literature; and he preferred the books, to the conversation, of learned men, the latter of which, he said, had almost always disappointed him.

At Montbard, in France, in the route from Paris to Dijon, the house in which Buffon spent the greatest part of his life may yet be inspected by the curious traveller. In quitting this interesting spot, the column erected to Buffon by his son is seen, on which there was once the following inscription: "Excelsa turri humilis columnaParenti suo filius Buffon." That revolution which caused these words to be effaced, also condemned to the scaffold the writer of them, who died, pronouncing only, in a calm and dignified tone," Citizens, my name is-BUFFON!"

1. What was Buffon often styled?

2. What is to be seen at Montbard in France?

3. What did the son of Buffon pronounce on the scaffold?

DR. FRANKLIN.

LESSON CVII.-APRIL THE SEVENTEENTH.

Dr. Franklin.

149

On this day, in the year 1790, died at Philadelphia, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, aged 84. This celebrated man has scarcely been surpassed by any one, in that solid, practical wisdom, which consists in pursuing valuable ends by the most appropriate means. His cool temper and sound judgment secured him from false views and erroneous expectations: he saw things in their real light, and predicted consequences with almost prophetic accuracy. In all his speculations and pursuits, something beneficial was ever in contemplation; and his general character is sanctioned by the esteem and veneration of his country, which ranks him among its best and most valuable citizens.

As a natural philosopher his fame is principally founded upon his electrical discoveries. He has, however, displayed great ingenuity and sagacity upon other topics, particularly relative to meteorology and mechanics. It was his peculiar talent to draw useful lessons from the commonest occurrences, which would have passed unnoticed by the generality of observers. As a political writer he is characterised by force, clearness, and simplicity; and of his miscellaneous pieces, many are marked with a cast of humour which render them equally entertaining and impressive.

His "Private Correspondence," published many years ago, in a quarto volume, exhibits the author to equal advantage as a philosopher, man of business, moralist, and negotiator: here, also, will be seen the profound legislator and familiar friend, who opens his mind and delivers his sentiments with the same ingenuousness on matters of science and policy, the conduct of private life, and the interests of nations. His letters on public con

cerns are models of epistolary composition.

1. From what did Franklin's cool temper and sound judgment secure him?

2. On what science was his fame chiefly founded, in regard to natural philosophy?

3. Upon what other topics did he display great ingenuity and sagacity? 4. As a political writer, by what is Dr. Franklin characterised?

LESSON CVIII.-APRIL THE EIGHTEENTH.

The Talking Lady.

Ir must be premised that the lady in question is elderly, respectable, and well-bred; but talking, sheer talking, is meat, and drink, and sleep to her. She likes nothing else. Eating is a sad interruption. For the tea-table she has some toleration; but dinner, with its clatter of plates and jingle of knives and forks, dinner is her abhorrence. Nor are the other common pursuits of life more in her favour. Walking exhausts the breath that might be better employed. Dancing is a noisy diversion, and singing is worse she cannot endure any music, except the long, grand, dull concerto, which nobody thinks of listening to. Reading and chess she classes together as silent barbarisms, unworthy of a social and civilised people. Cards, too, have their faults: there is a rivalry, a mute eloquence in those four aces, that leads away the attention; besides, partners will sometimes scold; so she never plays at cards; and upon the strength of this abstinence had very nearly passed for serious, till it was discovered that she could not abide a long sermon. She always looks out for the shortest preacher, and never went to above one "Bible-meeting in her life. "Such speeches!" quoth she: "I thought the men never meant to have done. People have great need of patience." Plays, of course, she abhors, and operas, and mobs, and all things that will be heard, especially children; though for babies, particularly when asleep, for dogs and pictures, and such silent intelligences as serve to talk of and talk to, she has a considerable partiality.

[ocr errors]

Her medical dissertations savour a little of that particular branch of the science called quackery. She has a specific against almost every disease to which the human frame is liable; and is terribly prosy and unmerciful in her symptoms. Her cures kill. In housekeeping, her notions resemble those of other verbal managers; full of economy and retrenchment, with a leaning towards reform, though she loves so well to declaim on the abuses of the cook's department, that I am not sure she would very heartily thank any radical who should sweep them quite away.

Talk of what you will, she seems equally at home. The very weather is not a safe subject. Her memory is a perpetual register of hard frosts, and long droughts, and high winds, and terrible storms, with all the evils that followed

A PARENT'S ADVICE TO HIS CHILDREN.

151

in their train, and all the personal events connected with them; so that if you happen to remark that clouds are come up, and you fear it may rain, she replies, "Ay, it is just such a morning as three-and-thirty years ago, when my poor cousin was married-you remember my cousin Barbara she married so and so, the son of so and so;" and then comes the whole pedigree of the bridegroom; the amount of the settlements, and the reading and signing them over night; a description of the wedding dresses, in the style of Sir Charles Grandison, and how much the bride's gown cost per yard; the names, residences, and a short subsequent history of the bridemaids and men, the gentleman who gave the bride away, and the clergyman who performed the ceremony, with a learned antiquarian digression relative to the church: then the setting out in procession; the marriage; the kissing; the crying; the breakfasting; the drawing the cake through the ring; and, finally, the bridal excursion, which brings us back again at an hour's end to the starting-post, the weather, and the whole story of the sopping, the drying, the clothes-spoiling, the cold-catching, and all the small evils of a summer shower. By this time it rains, and she sits down to a pathetic see-saw of conjectures on the chance of Mrs. Smith's having set out for her daily walk, or the possibility that Dr. Brown may have ventured to visit his patients in a gig, and the certainty that Lady Green's new housemaid would come from London on the outside of the coach. And yet, with all this intolerable prating, she is actually reckoned a pleasant woman!

1. What amusements does the Talking Lady class together as silent barbarisms?

2. Why has she a partiality for babies, dogs, and pictures?

3. Of what does her medical dissertations savour?

4. What do her notions of housekeeping resemble ?

LESSON CIX. -APRIL THE NINETEENTH.

A Parent's Advice to his Children.

THE bosom friend, and successor of Lord Nelson in the command of the British fleet at Trafalgar, was Lord Collingwood, a man who, possessing all the skill and bravery natural to one who held so distinguished a rank in the navy, was a model of exemplary virtue in all the relations of private life. Of fifty years, during which he continued

in the service, nearly forty-five were passed in active employment abroad. Yet this affectionate husband and father, thus withheld from his family and home by a sense of public duty, still endeavoured to conduct the education of his daughters, and (while engaged, as he himself expressed it, in a perpetual contest with the elements, and with dispositions as boisterous and untractable,) to cultivate in their youthful minds, benevolence, gentleness, and every female virtue. In one of his letters are the following ad

mirable remarks:

"God Almighty has impressed on every breast a certain knowledge of right and wrong, which we call conscience. No person ever did a kind, a benevolent, a humane, or charitable action, without feeling a consciousness that it was good: it creates a pleasure in the mind that nothing else can produce; and this pleasure is the greater from the act which causes it being veiled from the eye of the world. It is the delight such as angels feel when they wipe away the tear from affliction, or warm the heart with joy. On the other hand, no person ever did or said an ill-natured, an unkind, or mischievous thing, who did not, in the very instant, feel that he had done wrong. This kind of feeling is a natural monitor, and never will deceive if due regard be paid to it; and one good rule, which you should ever bear in mind, and act up to as much as possible, is, never to say any thing which you may afterwards wish unsaid, or do what you may afterwards wish undone.

"The education of a lady, and, indeed, of a gentleman too, may be divided into three parts, all of great importance to their happiness, but in different degrees. The first part is the cultivation of the mind, that they may have a knowledge of right and wrong, and acquire a habit of doing acts of virtue and honour. By reading history you will perceive the high estimation in which the memories of good and virtuous people are held; the contempt and disgust which are affixed to the base, whatever may have been their rank in life. The second part of education is to acquire a competent knowledge how to manage your affairs, whatever they may happen to be; to know how to direct the economy of your house, and to keep exact accounts of every thing which concerns you. Whoever cannot do this must be dependent on somebody else, and those who are dependent on another cannot be perfectly at their ease. Independently of its great use to every body in every condition of life, arithmetic is one of the

« AnteriorContinuar »