too (as well as modern books on classical subjects), is a special matter on which the inquirer had better address himself to those who have made it their particular study. One observation may be made, similar to what was made on the History of England: there is a great lack of comprehensive histories of the Church, written in English at least histories of the whole series of Ecclesiastical events. In French, I cannot speak confidently: but there I apprehend the inconvenience is the other way. The histories of Tillemont, Fleury, and others, are so immensely voluminous that in this country at least they are only used for reference. Nor are they translated into English though Mr. Newman made a good sized book out of a translation of the merest fraction of Fleury. But there is the well-known book of Mosheim, well established here in the translation. And as there are countless works illustrative and explanatory of detached parts of the ground traversed in that book, it may perhaps be said, similarly to what I said of the use of Hume's History, that the general reader can do no better than go through Church History in Mosheim, who, dry and lifeless as he is, is correct, and entirely impartial supplying his defects as he goes on from the abundant other sources which exist, but which I leave it to others to specify.

I have confined myself to English and French. But I will venture to suggest with reference to Italian, to the same effect as regarding Greek and Latin, that few ordinary readers can hope to find time for more than the best authors in that language. I do not profess to give a catalogue of those but they, it is indisputable, are most eminently worthy of study, and no one who can read them should omit it.

I am very sensible of the utter imperfection of these suggestions, in the first place from having stopped short at the year 1800. I can only regret that I feel utterly incompetent to offer any hints even to the wayfarer, through the boundless forest that has grown up since then. Let those attempt to do so who think they can.

I am further sensible of the extreme meagreness of the hints I have given. Yet it is possible that, as a beginning, a reader will not go far wrong who makes himself first acquainted with the books I have here named.

There is the further defect, that I have not distinctly laid down an order in which the various lines of literature may be pursued. I am not able to do this, for I have been too much in the habit of neglecting such an order in my own reading. I have been in the habit of simultaneous reading of several books: and those who can do so without confusion of memory, will, I think, find no inconvenience in it.

One obvious rule may be, for an Englishman, to make himself first acquainted with what relates to his own country.

I end with repeating what I have applied to particular languages, but which is pretty nearly universally true. Read only or chiefly the best books. No doubt we may often want to inquire into some particular corner of historical or other knowledge, and then such a rule may be relaxed; nor is it to be too rigidly attempted to be observed. But still, O General Reader, read thou what is best. Thou wilt find, as thy sciolist of an adviser has long since done, that it is nearly hopeless to read an hundredth part even of that.

ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT.

(Hagley Parochial Magazine, January 1862.)

THERE is something strangely awful in the loneliness of a widowed throne; in the stillness of huge palaces, where none may be seen to smile, and the splendour and blazonry of Imperial grandeur are overlaid by the trappings of human woe.

Lord Byron tells those who may look at the ruins of ancient Rome, to

Much more justly may the spirit of this line be felt by

us now.

Many a mourning, many a desolate, many a halfbroken heart there is, among all the peoples, nations, and languages of England's Empire. grief," as it has been said, "lying like

66

Many a silent

lead within the Many a bereave

breast, or like cold ice upon the heart. ment which has robbed the world's gifts of their pleasant savour, and leads the heart but to sigh at the sight of them."+ But none like hers, who now sits a widow in her island home afar, and even on this day may in fancy be listening to the heavy toll of the funeral bells, borne across the narrow channel.

All these things are for our learning. Let this lead *Childe Harold, IV. 78. Newman's Sermons, V. 338.

Dec. 23, 1861.

us to dwell a little on the value, as we trust, of Christian sympathy, and intercessory prayer.

Long have the cares of Empire weighed on that noble and still youthful head. Hitherto they have been unmingled with aught of domestic sorrow, almost of domestic anxiety. Henceforth it will not be so. That calm and unobtrusive wisdom, that unselfish patriotism to an adopted country, that example of public and of private virtue, have passed away from us: and they who may be present on the occasion-surely a great and a touching one-when the Queen shall first again appear in public, among those from whom for a time she must be hid, will see on that Imperial brow the deep lines of a life-long grief. May it be in some slight measure due even to our poor prayers, if with them shall also be seen the soft light of heavenly Resignation, and a Hope not of this world, nor of Time.

A FEW WORDS ON ENGLISH POETS.

Read at Hagley, December 23, 1862.

[The reader is requested to remember that this Lecture was addressed to a village audience, and that therefore the quotations were necessarily of a short and popular character.]

THE Rev. Thomas Legh Claughton is Vicar of Kidderminster, and Honorary Canon of Worcester. But he was also, some years ago, Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford; and in this character, or excharacter, if he needed any special character at all, it may have been that he addressed to us, in this place, two Lectures on Poetry, which we heard with the utmost delight. I say if he needed any special character in truth he needed nothing but his native taste and his power of elocution, of reading aloud, in neither of which, I believe, can he be surpassed. I remind you of this in order to apologise for my presumption in attempting to occupy any part of the same ground over which he passed.

:

Yet in one respect, and that an important one, I have no fear of the charge of presumption. There are three things to be encountered by one who attempts such a lecture as this-the choice of passages to be read: the lecturer's own remarks, which are often like the packing, the straw, shavings, cotton, wool, and nameless rubbish of all sorts,-in which precious goods are