appreciate the great health-giving powers of nature, light, and fresh air. They suffered also from chronic hydrophobia or aversion to water; and so they burrowed like rabbits away from the sun and the free breezes, exclaiming, "The closer, the warmer; the clartier, the cosier." Look, too, at the crosses and texts above some of the doors. These are graphic reminders of the dark days of superstition, when the dread of evil spirits was instilled in childhood, fostered by weird stories round the winter fire, and confirmed by the teachers of religion; when the people felt that Satan's invisible world was around them, and strove to protect themselves by inscribing holy spells above the entrance of their dwellings.' Now let me ask which of these two men understands the presentthe one who gazes in listless ignorance on the memorials of bygone ages, or the one to whom every relic is full of meaning?

In the third place, we say that this study of history will aid a man in doing his everyday work. Man is what we would call an imitating animal. If you will consider the matter for a little, you will see that all his faculties have been developed by the imitation of his parents and friends. If he had not had the

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opportunity of imitating them, his

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actions, his manners, his virtues, nay, his very speech, would have been something very different. As a general rule, a person who herds with boors becomes a boor; as a general rule, a person who associates with demigods becomes a demigod. It is companionship that makes the man. Now, the student of history moves among the very best society that ever existed. contemplates the greatest heroes and patriots. He sympathizes with their fervent aspirations, and watches with eager interest their noble deeds. He admires them, in fact, with his whole heart; and admiration is the first step towards imitation. sensibly he becomes infected with the nature of those he admires. His views become larger, his sympathies warmer, and his aims nobler. This must in the nature of things be the result; and this is the result which history was intended by God to produce. Now, let us ask, will large views, warm sympathies, and noble aims aid a man in his everyday work? We answer, if they do not, we know not what will.

In

WILLIAM COWPER.

From a Picture by Jackson RA in the Collection of the Right Honorable the Earl Cowper.

The Highways of Literature p 115.

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CHAPTER V.

POETRY.

HAT is the essence of poetry? This is a very knotty question, which the greatest critics, from Plato downwards, have tried to solve. They all agree in thinking that it is found in the ideas, and not in the words; that it is not necessarily expressed in verse, but may often be seen in prose. But not one of them has devised an answer sufficiently comprehensive and explicit to gain universal assent; and in this wonderful age, which has solved so many mysteries, this simple question, 'What is poetry?' is still unsolved.

Although it would be presumptuous in us to attempt what so many have failed to accomplish, we will try to illustrate the nature of poetry by an example taken from everyday life. When a man is talking about an ordinary subject the words drop carelessly