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whose utmost gifts are poor compared to those he daily receives at the hands of his never-failing Almighty Friend. "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth," is big with the deepest wisdom: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and, an upright heart, that is understanding. This is eternally true, whether the wits and rakes of Cambridge allow it or not: nay, I must add of this religious wisdom, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace," whatever your young gentlemen of pleasure think of a tainted health and battered constitution. Hold fast therefore by this sheet-anchor of happiness, Religion; you will often want it in the times of most danger— the storms and tempests of life. Cherish true religion. Remember the essence of religion is, a heart void of offence towards God and man; not subtle speculative opinions, but an active vital principle of faith.

Go on, my dear child, in the admirable dispositions you have. towards all that is right and good, and make yourself the love and admiration of the world! I have neither paper nor words to tell you how tenderly

I am yours.

OUR OWN REASON AND OTHERS' EXPERIENCE, TO BE USED.

BATH, February 3, 1754.

Nothing can, or ought to give me a higher satisfaction, than the obliging manner in which my dear nephew receives my most sincere and affectionate endeavors to be of use to him. You much overrate the obligation, whatever it be, which youth has to those who have trod the paths of the world before them, for their friendly advice how to avoid the inconveniences, dangers, and evils, which they themselves may have run upon, for want of such timely warnings, and to seize, cultivate, and carry forward towards perfection, those advantages, graces, virtues, and felicities, which they may have totally missed, or stopped short in the generous pursuit. To lend this helping hand to those who are beginning to tread the slippery way, seems, at best, but an office of common humanity to all; but to withhold it from one we truly love, and whose heart and mind bear every genuine mark of the very soil proper for all the amiable, manly, and generous virtues to take root, and bear their heavenly fruit; inward, conscious peace, fame among men, public love, temporal, and eternal happiness; to withhold it, I say, in such an instance, would deserve the worst of names. I am greatly pleased, my dear young friend, that you do me the justice to believe I do not mean to impose any yoke of authority upon your understanding and conviction.

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wish to warn, admonish, instruct, enlighten, and convince your reason; and so determine your judgment to right things, when you shall be made to see that they are right; not to overbear, and impel you to adopt any thing before you perceive it to be right or wrong, by the force of authority. I hear with great pleasure, that Locke lay before you, when you writ last to me; and I like the observation that you make from him, that we must use our own reason, not that of another, if we would deal fairly by ourselves, and hope to enjoy a peaceful and contented conscience. This precept is truly worthy of the dignity of rational natures. But here, my dear child, let me offer one distinction to you, and it is of much moment; it is this: Mr. Locke's precept is applicable only to such opinions as regard moral or religious obligations, and which, as such, our own consciences alone can judge and determine for ourselves. Matters of mere expediency, that affect neither honor, morality, or religion, were not in that great and wise man's view such are the usages, forms, manners, modes, proprieties, decorums, and all those numberless ornamental little acquirements, and genteel well-bred attentions, which constitute a proper, graceful, amiable, and noble behavior. In matters of this kind, I am sure, your own reason, to which I shall always refer you, will at once tell you, that you must, at first, make use of the experience of others: in effect, see with their eyes, or not be able to see at all; for the ways of the world, as to its usages and exterior manners, as well as to all things of expediency and prudential considerations, a moment's reflection will convince a mind as right as yours, must necessarily be to inexperienced youth, with ever so fine natural parts, a terra incognita.1 As you would not therefore attempt to form notions of China or Persia but from those who have travelled those countries, and the fidelity and sagacity of whose relations you can trust; so will you, as little, I trust, prematurely form notions of your own, concerning that usage of the world (as it is called) into which you have not yet travelled, and which must be long studied and practised, before it can be tolerably well known. I can repeat nothing to you of so infinite consequence to your future welfare, as to conjure you not to be hasty in taking up notions and opinions: guard your honest and ingenuous mind against this main danger of youth. With regard to all things that appear not to your reason, after due examination, evident duties of honor, morality, or religion, (and in all such as do, let your conscience and reason determine your notions and conduct,) in all other matters, I say, be slow to form opinions, keep your mind in a candid state of suspense, and open to full conviclion when you shall procure it, using in the mean time the expe

1 An unknown land.

rience of a friend you can trust, the sincerity of whose advice you will try and prove by your own experience hereafter, when more years shall have given it to you. I have been longer upon this head, than I hope there was any occasion for: but the great importance of the matter, and my warm wishes for your welfare, figure, and happiness, have drawn it from me.

My dear Nephew,

Ever affectionately.

Yours.

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. 1723–1780.

THIS eminent civilian was born in London, in July, 1723. His ather was a silk-mercer, and the fortune he had acquired in the honorable Į ursuits of 1 trade, was sufficient to enable him to afford his son every advantage of education and scholarship. On leaving the University of Oxford, having selected the law as his profession, he entered the Middle Temple, on which occasion he wrote the sprightly and beautiful lines entitled "The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse." In due time he was called to the bar, but after seven years of patient and vain expectance, meeting with but little success, he returned to Oxford, with the intention of living on his fellowship. Having, however, obtained an appointment to the law professorship in the university, he so distinguished himself by the lectures he delivered, that he resumed the practice of his profession with a success proportioned to his great abilities and learning. In 1765 he published his celebrated "Commentaries on the I aws of England," than which few books have exerted a wider influence, it being one of the first works read by every student of the law, and the one to which, perhaps, he makes the most frequent reference through the whole course of his professional life. In 1770, Blackstone was made one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, which situation he held till his death, in 1786

THE LAWYER'S FAREWELL TO HIS MUSE.

As by some tyrant's stern command,

A wretch forsakes his native land,
In foreign climes condemn'd to roam
An endless exile from his home;
Pensive he treads the destined way,
And dreads to go, nor dares to stay;
Till on some neighboring mountain's brow
He stops, and turns his eyes below;
Then, melting at the well-known view,
Drops a last tear, and bids adieu;
So I, thus doom'd from thee to part,
Gay Queen of Fancy and of Art,
Reluctant move, with doubtful mind,
Oft stop, and often look behind.

Companion of my tender age,
Serenely gay, and sweetly sage,

How blithesome were we wont to rove
By verdant hill or shady grove,

Where fervent bees, with humming voice,
Around the honey'd oak rejoice,
And aged elms with awful bend

In long cathedral walks extend!
Lull'd by the lapse of gliding floods,
Cheer'd by the warbling of the woods,

How bless'd my days, my thoughts how free
In sweet society with thee!

Then all was joyous, all was young,
And years unheeded roll'd along:
But now the pleasing dream is o'er,

Those scenes must charm me now no more
Lost to the fields, and torn from you,-
Farewell!-a long, a last adieu.

Me wrangling courts, and stubborn law,
To smoke, and crowds, and cities, draw:
There selfish faction rules the day,
And pride and avarice throng the way;
Diseases taint the murky air,

And midnight conflagrations glare;
Loose revelry and riot bold

In frighted streets their orgies hold;
Or, where in silence all is drown'd,
Fell Murder walks his lonely round;
No room for peace, no room for you,
Adieu, celestial nymph, adieu!

Shakspeare no more, thy sylvan son,
Nor all the art of Addison,

Pope's heaven-strung lyre, nor Waller's ease, Nor Milton's mighty self, must please:

Instead of thee, a formal band

In furs and coifs around me stand;

With sounds uncouth and accents dry,

That grate the soul of harmony:
Each pedant sage unlocks his store
Of mystic, dark, discordant lore;

And points with tottering hand the ways
That lead me to the thorny maze.

There, in a winding close retreat,
Is justice doom'd to fix her seat;
There, fenced by bulwarks of the law,
She keeps the wondering world in awe;
And there, from vulgar sight retired,
Like eastern queens, is more admired.
O let me pierce the secret shade
Where dwells the venerable maid!
There humbly mark, with reverend awe
The guardian of Britannia's law;
Unfold with joy her sacred page,
Th' united boast of many an age;
Where mix'd, yet uniform, appears
The wisdom of a thousand years.
In that pure spring the bottom view,
Clear, deep, and regularly true;

And other doctrines thence imbibe
Than lurk within the sordid scribe;
Observe how parts with parts unite
In one harmonious rule of right;
See countless wheels distinctly tend
By various laws to one great end:
While mighty Alfred's piercing soul
Pervades and regulates the whole.

Then welcome business, welcome strife
Welcome the cares, the thorns of life,
The visage wan, the purblind sight,
The toil by day, the lamp at night,
The tedious forms, the solemn prate,
The pert dispute, the dull debate,
The drowsy bench, the babbling Hall,-
For thee, fair Justice, welcome all!
Thus though my noon of life be past,
Yet let my setting sun, at last,
Find out the still, the rural cell,
Where sage Retirement loves to dwell!
There let me taste the homefelt bliss
Of innocence and inward peace;
Untainted by the guilty bribe,
Uncursed amid the harpy tribe;
No orphan's cry to wound my ear;
My honor and my conscience clear;
Thus may I calmly meet my end,
Thus to the grave in peace descend.

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SAMUEL JOHNSON, the Corypheus of English Literature of the eighteenth century, was born at Litchfield,' in Staffordshire, September 7, 1709, and was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. He gave early proof of a vigorous understanding and of a great fondness for knowledge; but poverty compelled him to leave the university, after being there three years, without taking a degree, and he returned to Litchfield in the autumn of 1731, destitute, and wholly undetermined what plan of life to pursue. His father, who had been a bookseller, and who had become insolvent, died in December, and in the July following, Johnson accepted the situation of usher of the grammar-school at Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire. For this situation, however, he soon felt himself utterly unqualified by means of his natural disposition. Though his scholarship was ample, he wanted that patience to bear with dulness and waywardness, those kind and urbane manners to win love and respect, that tact in controlling and governing youth, and that happy manner of illustrating difficulties and imparting knowledge, which are as essential as high literary attainments to form the perfect schoolmaster. No wonder, therefore, that he quitted the high vocation in disgust. His scholars, doubtless, were quite as glad to get rid of him as he was of them. Non omnes omnibus.

1 Hence he has been frequently termed "The Sage o" Litchfield."

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