Consider that the invisible thing called a good name is made up of the breath of numbers that speak well of you; so that, if by a disobliging word you silence the meanest, the gale will be less strong which is to bear up your esteem. And though nothing is so vain as the eager pursuit of empty applause, yet to be well thought of, and to be kindly used by the world, is like a glory about a woman's head; it is a perfume she carries about with her, and leaveth wherever she goeth; it is a charm against its will. Malice may empty her quiver, but cannot wound; the dirt will not stick, the jests will not take; without the consent of the world, a scandal doth not go deep; it is only a slight stroke upon the injured party, and returneth with the greater force upon those that gave it. Saville.

NAME-Honours of a.

The honours of a name 'tis just to guard; They are a trust but lent us, which we take, And should, in reverence to the donor's fame, With care transmit them down to other hands. Shirley.

NAMES-Importance of.

There is much, nay almost all, in names. The name is the earliest garment you wrap round the earth, to which it thenceforth cleaves more tenaciously (for these are names that have lasted nigh thirty centuries) than the very skin. And now from without, what mystic influences does it not send inwards, even to the centre, especially in those plastic first-times, when the whole soul is yet infantine, eoft; and the invisible seed-grain will grow to be an all-over-shadowy tree ! Names? Could I unfold the influence of names, which are the most important of all clothings, I were a second great Trismegistus. Not only all common speech, but science-poetry itselfis no other, if thou consider it, than a right naming. Adam's first task was giving names to natural appearances. What is ours still but a continuation of the same, be the appearance exotic, vegetable, organic, mechanic, stars,

NATURE.

or starry movements (as in science); or (as in poetry) passions, virtues, calamities, God, attributes, gods! Carlyle.

NAMES (Great)-Proper Use of.

Great names debase instead of raising those who know not how to use them.

La Rochefoucauld. NATURE-worthy of Admiration.

A pious acquaintance, remarkable for the quaint shrewdness of his observations, one day, when walking in a garden, having pulled a flower of exquisite loveliness, after expressing, in his own characteristic way, his admiration of its various beauties, took up a clod of the soil in his other band, and naïvely, but emphatically, exclaimed, "What but Almighty power could extract that from this?"" If there was anything ludicrous in the manner, there was nothing but truth and sublimity in the sentiment. Everything in the operations of the Creator is worthy of devout admiration, but I scarcely know anything in the inanimate world which brings together and concentrates so many wonders of designing wisdom and benevolence, as the structure and qualities of a flower, and assuredly not a little is added to the surprise and pious feeling with which this delightful production is contemplated, when we think of the crude materials from

which it is elaborated. The beauty of form and colour, the sweetness of the fragrance, the delicate and skilful nature of the crganization, the careful provisions, the forethought, the contrivance, the suiting of parts, as regards the propagation of the species, the adaptations to the subsistence and enjoyment of the insect tribes, all produced by the artificial union of a few simple and apparently unfit substances, cannot fail to excite in the reflecting mind the most lively sentiments of astonishment, and to force upon it the conviction, that here, without doubt, is the finger of God. Duncan

NATURE-alone Antique.

It struck me much, as I sat by the Kubbach one silent noontide, and watched it flowing, gurgling, to think how this same streamilet | had flowed and gurgled through all changes i of weather and of fortune, from beyond the earliest date of history. Yes, probably on the morning when Joshua forded Jordan; even as at the mid-day when Caesar, doubtless with difficulty, swam the Nile, yet kept his Commentaries dry,-this little Kuhbach, assiduous as Tiber, Eurotas, or Siloa, was murmuring on across the wilderness, as yet unnamed, unseen: here, too, as in the Euphrates and the Ganges, is a vein or veinlet of the grand world-circulation of waters, which, with its atmospheric

arteries, has lasted, and lasts, simply with the world. Thou fool! Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom; that idle crag thou sittest on is six thousand years of age. Carlyle. NATURE-Great Author of.

The day is Thine, the night also is Thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: Thou hast made summer and winter. David.

Men are impatient, and for precipitating things; but the Author of nature appears deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing His natural ends by slow, successive steps. And there is a plan of things beforehand laid out, which, from the nature of it, requires various systems of means, as well as length of time, in order to the carrying on its several parts into operation-making one thing subservient to another; this to somewhat further, and even through a progressive series of means which extend both backward and forward beyond our utmost view.

Bishop Butler.

Nothing can be more ungrateful than to pass over the works of God without consideration. To study them is among the highest gratifications the human mind can enjoy, provided the study is conducted upon religious principles. The book of Nature is open to all. "On every leaf, Creator, God,' is written." Let us, then, daily employ some of those intervals of leisure, which all may command, in examining those objects which fall under our immediate observation, and we shall find cause to say, with the inspired Psalmist, from the conviction of our own minds, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works, in wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches!" Mrs. Trimmer.

The sea is like a silvery lake,

And o'er its calm the vessel glides Gently as if it fear'd to wake

The slumbers of the silent tides. Moore. NATURE-Celestiality of.

O nature! by impassion'd hearts alone
Thy genuine charms are felt. The vulgar mind
Sees but the shadow of a power unknown:
Thy loftier beauties beam not to the blind
And sensual throng, to grovelling hopes
resign'd:

But they who high and lofty thoughts inspire,
Adore thee, in celestial glory shrined,
In that diviner fane, where love's pure fire
Burns bright, and genius tunes his loud
immortal lyre.
Pringle.
NATURE-Successive Changes of.

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress. Dickens.

NATURE Communion with.
If thou art worn and hard beset

With sorrows that thou wouldst forget,
If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from
sleep,

Go to the woods and hills! No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

Longfellow.

Art sick?-art sad?-art angry with the world? Do all friends fail thee? Why, then, give thyself

Unto the forests and the ambrosial fields:

Commerce with them, and with the eternal sky.
Despair not, fellow. He who casts himself
On Nature's fair full bosom, and draws food,
Drinks from a fountain that is never dry.
The Poet haunts there: Youth that ne'er
grows old

Dwells with her and her flowers; and Beauty sleeps

Nature is still, as ever, the thin veil
Which half conceals, and half reveals the face,
And lineaments supernal of our King,-
The modifying medium through which
His glories are exhibited to man,-
The grand repository where He hides

His mighty thoughts, to be dug out liko diamonds,

Still is the day irradiate with His glory,
Flowing in steady, sun-streaked, ocean gush
From his transcendent nature,--still at night
O'er our horizon trail the sable robes
Of the Eternal One, with all their rich
Embroidery and emblazonment of stars.

J. Stanyan Bigg.

The time-vesture of God, that reveals Him to the wise, and hides Him from the foolish.

Carlyle.

NATURE-God in.

It is particularly worth observation, that the more we magnify, by the assistance of glasses, the works of nature, the more regular and beautiful they appear; while it is quite different in respect to those of art: for when they are examined through a microscope, we are astonished to find them so coarse, so rough and uneven, although they have been done with all imaginable care by the best workmen. Thus God has impressed, even on the smallest atom, an image of his infinity. Sturm.

Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year; How mighty, how majestic are thy works! With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul

That sees astonish'd! and astonish'd sings!
Thomson.

NATURE-Silent Grandeur of.
The glorious light of all the sky was under-
neath this globe, and birds grew silent.
Washington Irving.

NATURE-Historians of.

Nature will be reported: all things are engaged in writing its history. The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain, the river its channels in the soil, the animal is bones in the stratum, the fern and leaf their modest epitaph in the coal. The fallen drop makes its sculpture in the sand or stone; not a foot-step in the snow, or along the ground, but prints in characters more or lese lasting a map of its march; every act of man inscribes itself in the memories of his fellows, and in his own face. The air is full of sounds, the sky of tokens, the ground of memoranda and signatures; and every object is covered over with hints, which speak to the intelligent. Hugh Miller.

NATURE-Human.

It surely is one of the prominent frailities of human nature, that we are incapable of duly appreciating those favours which are offered to us at little cost. The inference is plain: we place fictitious value on what we desire, and on what we possess; and it may be instructive to carry our researches further into the affairs of this present life, and endeavour to ascertain what real importance attaches to any of those

I could spend whole days, and moonlight nights, in feeding upon a lovely prospect! My eyes drink the rivers as they flow. If every human being upon earth could think for one quarter of an hour, as I have done for many years, there might, perhaps, be many miserable men among them; but not an unawakened one could be found, from the arctic to the antarctic circle. I delight in baubles, and know them to be so; for, rested in, and viewed without a reference to their Author, what is the earth, what are the planets, what is the sun itself, but a bauble? Better for a man never to have seen them, or to see them with the eyes of a brute, stupid and unconscious of what he beholds, than not to be able to say: "The Maker of all these wonders is my friend!" Their eyes have never been opened to see that they are trifles; mine have been, and will be, till they are closed for ever. They think a fine estate, a large conservatory, hot-house rich as a West-Indian garden, things of consequence; visit them with pleasure, and muse upon them with ten times more. I am pleased with a frame of four lights, doubtful whether the few panes it contains will ever be worth a farthing; amuse myself with a green-house, which Lord Bute's gardener could take upon his back, and walk away with; and when I have paid it the accustomed visit, and watered it, and given it air, I say to myself,-"This is not mine; 'tis a plaything lent me for the present; I must leave it soon." Cowper.

NATURE.

NATURE-Love of

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;

Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home;
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime extends,
He had the passion and the power to roam.
The desert, forest, cavern, breakers' foam
Were unto him companionship; they spake
A mutual language, clearer than the tone
Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake
For Nature's pages, gloss'd by sunbeams on
the lake.

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars,
Till he had peopled them with beings bright
As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born
jars,

And human frailties, were forgotten quite.

Вугов.

There is a gentler element, and man
May breathe it with a calm unruffled soul,
And drink its living waters till the heart
Is pure. And this is human happiness!
Its secret and its evidence are writ
In the broad book of nature. 'Tis to have
Attentive and believing faculties;
To go abroad rejoicing in the joy
Of beautiful and well-created things;
To love the voice of waters, and the sheen
Of silver fountains leaping to the sea;
To thrill with the rich melody of birds
Living their life of music; to be glad
In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm;
To see a beauty in the stirring leaf
And find calm thoughts beneath the whisper-
ing tree;

To see, and hear, and breathe the evidence
Of God's deep wisdom in the natural world!
Willis.

NATURE-Different Meanings of.

Nature sometimes means the Author of Nature, or Natura naturans; as Nature hath | made man partly corporeal and partly immaterial. For Nature, in this sense, may be used the word "Creator." Nature sometimes means that on whose account a thing is what it is and is called; as when we define the nature of an angle. For nature in this sense may be used essence or quality. Nature sometimes means what belongs to a living creature at its nativity, or accrues to it at its birth; as when we say, a man is noble by nature; a child is naturally forward. This may be expressed by saying, the man was born so, the thing was generated such. Nature sometimes means an internal principle of local motion; as we say, the stone falls, or the flame rises, by nature. For this we may say, that the motion up or down is spontaneous, or produced