XXXI.—PARALLEL BETWEEN POPE And Dryden.

IN acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation; those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope.

Poetry was not the sole praise of either, for both excelled likewise in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is as a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and leveled by the roller.

Of genius—that power which constitutes a poet, that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert, that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigor Pope had only a little because Dryden had more, for every other writer since Milton must give place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs he has not better poems.

Dryden's performances were always hasty-either excited by some external occasion or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without

correction. What his mind could supply at call or gather at one excursion, was all that he sought and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.

-Dr. Samuel Johnson.

XXXII.-PARSON LEE.

To a drowsy country village
Came a certain Parson Lee;
And a man so quaintly different
From all other men was he,
That the Squire himself, the skeptic,
Came to church to hear him pray,
And to note the strange things uttered
By this marvel of the day.

The eccentric said this planet

Was a true and goodly place,
And the only thing it wanted
Was more of Heaven's grace;
And he sought to show the people
How to think, and work, and live,
So that each should help the other,
And unto the needy give.

How the door that leads to heaven

Was most ample, broad and wide,
How each could turn the handle
And go easily inside;

K. N. E.-16.

That the very gentlest natures
In the world may yet be strong;
And how truth is always wisdom,
And all wickedness is wrong.

He explained how true religion

Was day working,-nothing more; That this world was not an ocean, Nor the pebbles on the shore; But that thinking men and women Should find better things to do Than in twisting God's commandments, Or quite breaking them in two.

As for acting like our neighbors,
Why, we none of us are fools!
You can not be made a Christian
Under every-body's rules;
If your neighbor's not as good as
He or you would have him be,
Just you go ahead and beat him!
Said the candid Parson Lee.

Next he told them how complaining
Was a choking, noxious weed;
That the flowers scarcely blossomed
Ere they changed to homely seed;
How that seed again sprang upward,
And bore many flowerets more;
And that life was ever fading
And renewing, o'er and o'er.

So this man, by honest talking,
Worked his wonders in the town;

But he never cared for praises,

And he laughed at high renown;
Yet the people loved him dearly,
And they blessed God for the sight,

Till at last the master left them
On a cold, dark winter's night.

Thus he went, they knew not whither.
Have you ever met him, pray?
You would know him by his smiling,
And the sunshine on his way.
We have hunted o'er creation,
Over land and over sea,
But no traces can discover
Of our missing Parson Lee.

XXXIII.-CHEERFULNESS.

THERE is no other one quality that so much attaches man to his fellow-man as cheerfulness. Talents may excite more respect, and virtue more esteem; but the respect is apt to be distant, and the esteem cold. It is far otherwise with cheerfulness. It endears a man to the heart, not the intellect or the imagination. There is a kind of reciprocal diffusiveness about this quality that recommends its possessor by the very effect it produces. There is a mellow radiance in the light it sheds on all social intercourse, which pervades the soul to a depth that the blaze of intellect can never reach.

The cheerful man is a double blessing-a blessing to himself and to the world around him. In his own character, his good nature is the clear, blue sky of his own heart, on which every star of talent shines out more clearly. To others he carries an atmosphere of joy, and hope, and encouragement wherever he moves. His own cheerfulness becomes infectious, and his associates lose their moroseness and their gloom in the amber-colored light of the benevolence he casts around him.

It is true that cheerfulness is not always happiness. The face may glow in smiles while the heart “ runs in coldness and darkness below," but cheerfulness is the best external indication of happiness that we have, and it enjoys this

advantage over almost every other good quality, that the counterfeit is as valuable to society as the reality. It answers as a medium of public circulation fully as well as the true coin.

A man is worthy of all praise, whatever may be his private griefs, who does not intrude them on the happiness of his friends, but constantly contributes his quota of cheerfulness to the general public enjoyment. "Every heart knows its own bitterness," but let the possessor of that heart take heed that he does not distill it into his neighbor's cup and thus poison his felicity.

XXXIV. TRUTH THE OBJECT OF ALL STUDIES.

THE supreme want, as well as the supreme blessing of man, is truth; yes, truth in religion, which, in giving us pure and exalted ideas of the Divinity, teaches us, at the same time, to render him the most worthy and intelligent homage;-truth in morals, which indicates their duties to all classes, at once without rigor and without laxity;-truth in politics, which, in making authority more just and the people more acquiescent, saves governments from the passions of the multitude, and the multitude from the tyranny of governments;-truth in our legal tribunals, which strikes Vice with consternation, re-assures Innocence, and accomplishes the triumph of Justice;-truth in education, which, bringing the conduct of instructors into accordance with their teaching, exhibits them as the models no less than the masters of infancy and youth;-truth in literature and in art, which preserves them from the contagion of bad taste, from false ornaments as well as false thoughts;—truth in the daily commerce of life, which, in banishing fraud and imposture, establishes the common security;-truth in every thing, truth before every thing,—this is, in effect, what the whole human race, at heart, solicit. Yes, all men have a