BEAUTY. are letters, and words, and voices, vehicles, and missionaries; but they need to be interpreted in the right spirit. We must read and listen for them, and endeavour to understand and profit by them. And when we look around us upon earth, we must not forget to look upward to heaven: "Those who can see God in everything," writes a popular author, | "are sure to be good in everything." We may add with truth, that they are also sure to see beauty in everything and everywhere. When we are at peace with ourselves and the world, it is as though we gazed upon outward things through a golden-tinted glass, and saw a glory resting upon them all. We know that it cannot be long thus: sin and sorrow, and blinding tears, will dim the mirror of our inmost thoughts; but we must pray and look I again, and by-and-by the cloud will pass away. There is beauty everywhere; but it requires to be sought, and the seeker after it is sure to find it: it may be in some out-ofthe-way place, where no one else would think of looking. Beauty is a fairy; sometimes she hides herself in a flower-cup, or under a leaf, or creeps into the old ivy, and plays hide-andseek with the sunbeams, or haunts some ruined spot, or laughs out of a bright young face, Sometimes she takes the form of a white cloud, and goes dancing over the green fields, or the deep blue sea, where her misty form, marked out in a momentary darkness, looks like the passing shadow of an angel's wings. Beauty is a coquette, and weaves herself a robe of various hues, according to the season; and it is hard to say which is the most becoming of all the attitudes and shades she is wont to assume, as she traces her lineaments on the broad canvass of nature. Sala. BED-CHAMBER-Requisites of the. Sweet pillows, sweetest bed; Sir Philip Sidney. BED-CHAMBERS-Hints concerning. Their small size and their lowness render them very insalubrious; and the case is rendered worse by close windows and thick curtains and hangings, with which the beds are often so carefully surrounded as to prevent the possibility of the air being renewed. The consequence is, that we are breathing vitiated air during the greater part of the night; that is, during more than a third part of our lives: and thus the period of repose, which is necessary for the renovation of our mental and bodily vigour, becomes a source of disease. Sleep, under such circumstances, is very often | 49 BEE. disturbed, and always much less refreshing than when enjoyed in a well-ventilated apartment; it often happens, indeed, that such repose, instead of being followed by renovated strength and activity, is succeeded by a degree of heaviness and languor which is not overcome till the person has been some time in a purer air. Nor is this the only evil arising from sleeping in ill-ventilated apartments. When it is known that the blood undergoes most important changes in its circulation through the lungs, by means of the air which we breathe, and that these vital changes can only be effected by the respiration of pure air, it will be easily understood how the healthy functions of the lungs must be impeded by inhaling, for many successive hours, the vitiated air of our bed-rooms, and how the health must be as effectually destroyed by respiring impure air, as by living on unwholesome or innutritious food. In the case of children and young persons predisposed to consumption, it is of still more urgent consequence that they should breathe pure air by night as well as by day, by securing a continuous renewal of the air in their bed-rooms, nurseries, schools, &c. Let a mother, who has been made anxious by the sickly looks of her children, go from pure air into their bedroom in the morning, before a door cr window has been opened, and remark the state of the atmosphere, the close, oppressive, and often fœtid odour of the room, and she may cease to wonder at the pale, sickly aspect of her children. Let her pay a similar visit, some time after means have been taken, by the chimney ventilator or otherways, to secure a full supply, and continual renewal, of the air in the bed-rooms during the night, and she will be able to account for the more healthy appearance of her children, which is sure to be the consequence of supplying them with pure air to breathe. Sir James Clark. BED-TIME-A Season of Rest. In due season he betakes himself to his rest; he [the Christian] presumes not to alter the ordinance of day and night, nor dare confound, where distinctions are made by his Maker. Bishop Hall. There should be hours for necessities, not for delights; times to repair our nature with BEE-Description of the. Shakspeare. They have a king, and officers of sorts: Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; Others, like soldiers, armèd in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; Which pillage they with merry march bring home BEES-Instinct of. Even bees, the little alms-men of spring Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers. bowers, Keats. Tell me, ye studious, who pretend to see The fertile hills where sweeter herbage grows, disclose? How from the thicken'd mist and setting sun, To bring her burden to the certain hive, brass? Prior. BEGGARS - Ancient English Law against. For an able-bodied man to be caught a third time begging, was held a crime deserving death, and the sentence was intended on fit occasions to be executed. The poor man's adrantages which I have estimated at so high a rate, were not purchased without drawbacks. He might not change his master at his will, or wander from place to place. He might not keep his children at home, unless he could answer for their time. If out of employment, preferring to be idle, he might be demanded for work by any master of the "craft" to which he belonged, and compelled to work whether he would or no. If caught begging once, being neither aged nor infirm, he was whipped at the cart's tail. If caught a second time, his ear was slit or bored through with a hot iron. If caught a third time, being thereby proved to be of no use upon this earth, but to live upon it only to his own hurt, and to that of others, he suffered death as a felon. So the law of England remained for sixty years. First drawn by Henry, it continued unrepealed through the reigns of Edward and Mary; subsisting, therefore, with the deliberate approval of both the great parties between whom the country was divided. Re-considered under Elizabeth, the same law was again formally passed; and it was, there BEHAVIOUR. fore, the expressed conviction of the English nation that it was better for a man not to live at all, than to live a profitless and worthless life. The vagabond was a sore spot upon the commonwealth, to be healed by wholesome discipline, if the gangrene was not incurable; to be cut away with the knife, if the milder treatment of the cart-whip failed to be of profit. Froude. BEGGARY-Reproaches of. Art thou a man, and sham'st thou not to beg,- Either the wars might still supply thy wants, Ben Jonson. BEGINNING-Difficulties of a In poesy, unless, perhaps, the end; Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend, Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far, Till our own weakness shows us what we are. Byron. BEHAVIOUR-Levity of. Levity of behaviour is the bane of all that is good and virtuous. Seneca. BEHAVIOUR-Oddities of. Oddities and singularities of behaviour may attend genius; when they do, they are its misfortunes and its blemishes. The man of true genius will be ashamed of them; at least he will never affect to distinguish himself by whimsical peculiarities. Sir W. Temple. BEHAVIOUR-Proper. What is becoming is honourable, and what is honourable is becoming. Tully. BEHAVIOUR-Rules for. When you come into any fresh company, 1. Observe their humours. 2. Suit your own BEHAVIOUR. carriage thereto; by which insinuation you will make their converse more free and open. 3. Let your discourse be more in queries and doubtings than peremptory assertions or disputings, it being the designe of travellers to learne, not to teach. Besides, it will persuade your acquaintance that you have the greater esteem of them, and soe make them more ready to communicate what they know to you; whereas nothing sooner occasions disrespect and quarrels than peremptorinesse. You will find little or no advantage in seeming wiser, or much more ignorant than your company. 4. Seldom discommend anything though never so bad, or doe it but moderately, lest you bee unexpectedly forced to an unhansom retraction. It is safer to commend anything more than it deserves, than to discommend a thing soe much as it deserves; for commendations meet not soe often with oppositions, or, at least, are not usually soe ill-resented by men that think otherwise, as discommendations; and you will insinuate into men's favour by nothing sooner than seeming to approve and commend what they like; but beware of doing it by a comparison. 5. If you bee affronted, it is better, in a forraine country, to pass it by in silence, and with a jest, though with some dishonour, than to endeavour revenge; for in the first case, your credit's ne'er the worse when you return into England, or come into other company that have not heard of the quarrell. But, in the second case, you may beare the marks of the quarrell while you live, if you outlive it at all. But, if you find yourself unavoidably engaged, 'tis best, I think, if you can command your passion and language, to keep them pretty eavenly at some certain moderate pitch, not much hightning them to exasperate your adversary or provoke his friends, nor letting them grow overmuch dejected to make him insult. In a word, if you can keep reason above passion, that and watchfulness will be your best defendants. Sir Isaac Newton. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. Never spend your money before you have it. Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold. We seldom repent of having eaten too little. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. How much pain the evils have cost us that have never happened. Take things always by the smooth handle. I envy not quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, or fancy : but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness, creates new hopes, when all earthly hopes vanish; and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity: makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise; and far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of plains and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair. BELIEF-a Willing. Sir Humphry Davy. Men willingly believe what they wish to be true. Casar. BELIEVING-Means of. There are three means of believing; by inspiration, by reason, and by custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its sons who do not believe by inspiration. Nor does it injure reason or custom, or debar them of their proper force: on the contrary, it directs us to open our minds by the proofs of the former, and to confirm our minds by the authority of the latter. But then it chiefly engages us to offer ourselves, with all humility, to the succours of inspired grace, which alone can produce the true and salutary effect. Pascal. BELL-of the College Chapel. Lo I, the man whom erst the Muse did ask Her deepest notes to swell the patriot's meeds, 0! how I love the sound! it is the knell That still a requiem tolls to comfort's hour; And loth am I. at SUPERSTITION'S bell, To quit or Morpheus' or the Muse's bower : Better to lie and doze, than gape amain, Hearing still mumbled o'er the same infernal strain. BELL-Echoing Knell of the. Thou tedious herald of more tedious prayers, Spread his broad nostril to the wind, Or rather, do not all reluctant creep Thou dull memorial of monastic gall ! What fancy, sad or lightsome, hast thou BELL-The Passing. given ? Sir Walter Scott. What meant that tongue of death, that Thy vision-scaring sounds alone recall solemn knell, At midnight thus, which cleaves the silent air! Hervey. 1 BELL-Curfew. Solemnly, mournfully, Dealing its dole, The curfew bell Is beginning to toll: Cover the embers, And put out the light; Dark grow the windows, No voice in the chambers, The book is completed, And closed, like the day; Lays it away. Dim grow its fancies; Forgotten they lie; Like coals in the ashes, They darken and die. |