To possess at once keen insight and imperative sympathies, is to be liable to extreme mental suffering. The ability to discern things in their actual relations, to pierce the rind of the conventional and draw near the heart of nature, may be enjoyed merely as a scientific pastime; but when "the strong necessity of loving" is united to such clear perceptions, the mind and the heart are exposed to severe and incessant conflict; and to reconcile them is the grand problem of life. THERE is no saying shocks us so much, as that which we hear very often, that a man does not know how to pass his time. WE make laws, but we follow customs. So much are we the slaves of the world, that we sometimes hesitate to do an action which is prompted by the heart, fearful that it may be mistaken by others for folly. MAN is sometimes our enemy, God is always our friend. ROB life of its hypocrisy, and who would not avoid his neighbour and be avoided himself? LIFE should be a continued effort to banish our prejudices, and extinguish our vices. NOTHING that is excellent can be wrought suddenly. THE higher the head, the humbler the heart. THE art of life is to know how to enjoy a little, and to endure much. LIBERTY is the only true riches. Of all the rest we are at once the masters and the slaves. PEOPLE had much rather be thought to look ill than old; because it is possible to recover from sickness, but there is no recovering from age. THE rich who do nothing themselves, represent idleness as the greatest crime. They have reason; it is necessary that some one should do something. A WISE man had it for a bye-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, "Stay a little that we may make an end the sooner." WE may forgive an injury and an insult; but we cannot endure to be bored, not even by those we love. THE Conversation of a friend brightens the eyes. AN author may be considered as a merciful substitute to the Legislature. He acts not by punishing crimes, but by preventing them. Printed and Published for the Proprietor, by JOHN OWEN CLARKE. (of No. 9, Hemingford Terrace, East, in the Parish of St. Mary, Islington, in the County of Middlesex) at his Printing Office, No. 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Bride, in the City of London. Saturday, June 23, 1849. A BEAM IN THE EYE! THERE are some natures so happily constituted that they can find a good in everything. There is no calamity so great, but they educe comfort of some kind or other from it. No sky so black, but they can discern a gleam of sunshine issuing through it, from one quarter or another; and if the sun is not to be seen at all, they at least comfort themselves with the assurance that it is there, though now veiled from them, doubtless for some good purpose. These happy, sunshiny beings are to be envied. They have a beam in the eye-a beam of pleasure, gladness, philosophy, call it what you will. Sunshine is ever about their hearts; life is to them strewed with flowers; existence is with them a constant summer. Their mind gilds with its own hues all things that it looks upon. They draw comfort from sorrow; they educe good out of evil; like the bee, they gather honey even from poison flowers. "There is scarcely a single joy or sorrow (says Leigh Hunt, somewhere) within the experience of our fellowcreatures, which we have not tasted; yet the belief in the Good and the Beautiful has never forsaken us. It has been medicine to us in sickness, riches in poverty, and the best part of all that ever delighted us in health and success." The man who can write thus, has surely got the beam in his eye! Let it not for one moment be imagined that natures, such as those we speak of, are necessarily weak, giddy, and unreflective. The very largest and most comprehensive natures are generally also the most cheerful, the most loving, the most hopeful, the most trustful. It is the wise man, the being of large vision, who is the quickest to discern the moral sunshine streaming through the thickest clouds. In present evil, he sees prospective good; in pain, he recognises the effort of nature to restore health; in trials, he discerns the best school of courage and strength; even in deepest sorrow he gathers comfort; and in the sternest disappointments and sufferings, he gathers the truest practical wisdom. "There's wit there, ye'll get there, ye'll find nae other where." His heart is strung to sympathy with universal nature, and, even in her blackest moods, does he find a sense and meaning. When he has burdens to bear, he bears them manfully and joyfully, not repining nor fretting and wasting his energies in useless lamentation, but struggling onward manfully, gathering up such flowers as are strewn along his path. Journeying steadily towards the sun, the shadow of his burden is thrown behind him. There are few, indeed, who might not, with infinite advantage, cultivate the beam in the eye; in other words, who might not enjoy, far more than they do, the pleasures of rational existence. Happiness is certainly the end of our being; pain and misery are only incidental to it, and but too often are the result of the violence which man [PRICE 14d. does to his own nature. To believe that pain was the end of existence, would be to impugn the goodness of Him who placed us in the midst of this fair and beautiful earth, to live upon it and to enjoy it. And do not pleasures of the highest order-of home, of affection, of friendly intercourse, of nature, of religion, lie about us on every side? Has not the great theatre of man's existence been so fitted up as that he who wills it may become a good, useful, and happy creature? Alas! that so many of us should not use our opportunities aright, but positively abuse them. Let us begin forthwith, then, and cultivate a beam in the eye, looking at the bright, at the happy side of things; and being thus hopeful, trustful, and useful, let us look for gleams of sunshine, come from what quarter they may; and we shall thus have delight in struggling onward ourselves, and in helping others to do so likewise. Encourage the habit of being happy, for habit assuredly it is. Thus will adversity be made more hopeful, and prosperity more joyous. Let not the mind give way to gloomy thoughts, but be cheerful. Scarcely is there a subject that does not afford room for agreeable meditation. There is no human being so humble as not to be an object of human interest. There is no object in nature so mean as not to afford matter for instructive thought; and he who cannot extract benefit from such contemplations, is certainly not in any respect to be envied. Wordsworth, a poet with the beam in his eyeand there is no true poet without it says, "He who feels contempt For any living thing, hath faculties There is pleasure to be gathered from things in themselves apparently the most trivial. A leaf, a flower, a passage of poetry or music, a fine painting or piece of sculpture, how much delight does the man or woman of instructed intellect derive from such things! To some they may appear blanks; they may gaze at them, yet see nothing. It is the beam in the eye that gives brightness, beauty, and meaning to them; it shines upon coldness, and warms it; upon suffering, and comforts it; upon ignorance, and enlightens it; upon sorrow, and cheers it. The beam in the eye gives lustre to intellect, and brightens beauty itself. Without it, the sunshine is not felt, flowers bloom in vain, the marvels of earth and heaven are not appreciated, and creation is but one dreary, lifeless, soulless blank. It is pleasant to read the eloquent remarks of Jeremy Bentham, whom some would take to be only a musty, fusty old political economist, on this very subject, as given in his really interesting book on Deontology. He there gives the following excellent counsel :-"In all cases where the power of the will can be exercised on the thoughts, let those thoughts be directed towards happiness. Look out for the bright, for the brightest side of things. If exceptions there are, the exceptions are but few, and sanctioned only by the consideration that a less favourable view may, in its results, produce a larger sum of enjoyment on the whole; as where, for example, an increased estimate of difficulty or danger might be needful to call up a greater exertion for the getting rid of a present or future evil. When the mind, however, reposes upon its own complacencies, and looks around itself in search of food for thought, when it seeks rest from laborious occupation, or is forced upon inaction by the presence of adjacent circumstances, let all its ideas be made to spring up in the realms of pleasure, as far as the will can act upon the production. "A large part of existence is necessarily passed in inaction. By day (to take an instance from the thousands in constant recurrence), when in attendance on others, and the time is lost by being kept waiting; by night, when sleep is unwilling to close the eyelids, the economy of happiness recommends the occupations of pleasurable thought. In walking abroad, or in resting at home, the mind cannot be vacant; its thoughts may be useful, useless, or pernicious to happiness. Direct them aright; the habit of happy thought will spring up like any other habit. "It frequently happens when our mind is unable to furnish ideas of pleasure with which to drive out the impression of pain, these ideas may be found in the writings of others, and these writings will probably have a more potent interest when utterance is given to them. To a mind rich in stores of literature and philosophy, some thought, appropriate to the calming of sorrow, or the brightening of joy, will scarcely fail to present itself, clothed in the attractive language of some favourite author; and when emphatic expression is given to it, its power may be considerably increased. Poetry often lends itself to this benignant purpose; and where sound and sense, truth and harmony, benevolence and eloquence are allied, happy indeed are their influence." This is sound practical sense, moreover, excellent philosophy; and it affords valuable hints to those who would extract a rational enjoyment from existence. If suffering is to be borne-as it must-at least let us learn how it is best to be met, and how the struggling heart is to be comforted and supported in the midst of its trials. And here the consolations and pleasures of religion will at once suggest themselves. But let us not imitate those minds, which, like flies, are ever settling upon sores. We must endeavour to know much, and to love much; for the more one knows and loves, the more one lives, feels, and enjoys. Cherish the habit of cheerfulness above all things; it will serve alike for prosperity and adversity. In short, let us have the beam in the eye, and we shall be as happy and contented as this life can make us, or as Providence will admit of. THERE is no greater impertinence, than for an obscure individual to set about pumping a character of celebrity. "Bring him to me," said a Doctor Tronchin, speaking of Rousseau, "that I may see whether he has anything in him." Before you can take measure of the capacity of others, you ought to be sure that they have not taken measure of yours. They may think you a spy on them, and may not like your company. If you really want to know whether another person can talk well, begin by saying a good thing yourself, and you will have a right to look for a rejoinder. "The best tennis-players," says Sir Fopling Flutter, "make the best matches." For wit is like a rest Held up at tennis, which men do the best We hear it often said of great authors, that they are very stupid people in private. But the chances are, it was a fool that said so. In conversation, as in other things, the action and reaction should bear a certain proportion to each other. THE SCULPTOR OF BRUGES; OR THE MORAL OF A DREAM. YEARS ago, when many of the arts were in their infancy, there dwelt in the good old Flemish town of Bruges, hard by the church of St. Donatus (now long since demolished), an honest journeyman, named John Van Euel, whose calling was to carve wooden figures and ornaments for the different churches and buildings which had arisen, and were still daily springing up, in that prosperous city of merchant-princes. This young man, according to the evidence of those who knew him best, was "nobody's enemy but his own;" he was a frank-hearted, merry fellow, and to say the truth, a better workman never existed; he might have had jobs by the dozen, but for one obstacle, that he was far too indolent to finish any of them. So long as he could pick up sufficient coin for present support, he was contented; when hungry, he worked, and when his money was gone, he had to set to work again, which he did with the best heart in the world. This could not last, however; no person ever employed him twice, he was so dilatory in getting his orders completed; and when John, upon the strength of a few stray florins which he had managed to scrape together, chose to take unto himself a wife, the neighbours (as neighbours generally do) looked upon the dark side of the matter, and gravely shaking their heads, augured nothing but misfortune from the union. John, however, had promised to "turn over a new leaf" (encouraging phrase), and for some time he kept his word. Bertha, the tidiest, brightest-eyed little damsel, in a town ever proverbial for the beauty of its maidens, formed no exception to a thriftiness which still attracts the notice of every Belgian tourist; and, morning after morning, she might be seen knitting in the little workshop by the side of her husband, who carolled merry ditties as he chopped away lustily at his work. By degrees, also, John resumed his old habits; and when Bertha fell ill, and was no longer present to cheer and keep him up to his toil, he began to forsake his chisel and hammer, and wander forth again into the streets, where there was,-truth to say,-sufficient to attract and absorb many a profounder mind than his. Bertha got well, and returned to her labours, but John could seldom be prevailed on to visit his board; the dust gathered upon the carved work of his unfinished angels' heads, and the rust penetrated the implements of his vocation. A family came on, and the ceaseless occupation of Bertha's quick fingers could scarcely keep starvation from the door. And now idleness came to be a lesser evil than another which threatened to ruin the little family. John, dis.tressed at the sight of his wife's anxious countenance, and worn out by the cries of their two half-famished children, strove to drown the reproaches of his own heart by frequenting a certain hostelry, where wine the worst, and of the most extortionate price, was dealt out to unhappy victims of short-lived indulgence. Many a time Bertha sought and gently drew him home; but terrified at the rough language she encountered from those she saw there, and sometimes totally unable to persuade him to leave their companionship, she gave up at last in despair, and contented herself with endeavouring to supply the deficiency by additional efforts for support, drawn from the already too-greatly-infringed hours of the night. It had been a stormy day-the rain falling in torrents -John was sitting at evening over the heaped up logs of the inn fire, conversing with half a dozen disreputable vagabonds, who discussed every body's business but their own with the mock gravity of half-intoxication. His purse was exhausted, but his thirst was still unquenched, and diving to the bottom of the pockets in his threadbare doublet for the hundredth time, he withdrew his hands with a deep sigh-not a single groschen remained. The host came into the miserable chamber, and finding no more orders in agitation, commenced an exordium upon the imprudence of late hours, by way of hint to his moneyless customers to be going. John parted from them on the threshold, and with a heavy heart and staggering gait turned his steps homeward. careful what I promise." He merely nodded his head, however, at his companion, who took that as a hint to proceed. "You must know, John," said the little man, familiarly, but not without a certain solemnity in his voice, 'you must know, that there is not a foot of this city of bridges but contains some portion, large or small, of hidden treasure. My life long have I been endeavouring to come upon some, but so difficult a matter is it to go to work the right way, that it is only lately that I have discovered the secret. One thing must be done first, which I cannot do myself, and which you can. Now, As he emerged from the shadow of the inn gables, the moon struggled out through the moist atmosphere, illuminating the paved streets, which here and there were diversified by a deep and muddy pool, still agitated by a few drops of rain; and John, endeavouring with drunken | John, just walk a little way, and observe what happens." wisdom to avoid these, stumbled into most of them, as he pursued his path. The wind sighed at intervals in broken and fitful blasts, and just as he reached the Grande Place, the carillons rang madly out, starting him by their crashing peal, with which the tempest took strange liberties, flinging the sounds, as in very wantonness, here and there and everywhere. He looked up at the belfry, which loomed white against the leaden hue of the sky, and stopped, half-disposed to expostulate with the building for the start its noisy inmates had given him. The air was keen, however, and he thought better of it, pursuing, with a half shiver, his way past the Hotel de Ville, whose noble line of statues he gravely acknowleged, one by one, by an obsequious reverence. "I wonder," thought John to himself, as he groped his way (which, it must be confessed, was somewhat roundabout,) through the darker and smaller streets, "I wonder now why I could not carve just as fine figures as those yonder. Many a job I've done here in Bruges that others have got the credit of, and I would be at the top of the tree now if it were not for -, for What is the reason?" he said aloud, interrupting his reflections. -"Ah! that's the question!" John was just sober enough to know what the reason was, but he had no intention of confessing it, for all that, even to himself; so he contented his conscience by repeating over and over in a muttering, melancholy tone, "Why, it's because I've no luck! no luck!" "No luck?" half shrieked, half chuckled a voice at his side; "you no luck? Well now look here, John Van Euel, and I will show you how to get luck, and make your fortune by it, an you will." John had reached the bridge adjoining the Diore, and lolled against it in drowsy attitude; he started and shook more violently than when the carillons had made him jump in the Grande Place. "Hillo," he exclaimed, "who have we here?" as he looked round and discovered no one in sight; "who are you? where are you?" he shouted, gaining courage, and peeping over into the water, from whence the sounds had certainly appeared to come. A peal of merry and somewhat mocking laughter, was the answer; and the next moment climbing the balustrades of the bridge, and vaulting over them with the agility of a monkey, a little figure descended lightly at the side of John, who gazed with staring eyes, and mouth agape, at the form of the new arrival. He was a queer-looking fellow,-perhaps half the height of the stalwart journeyman, dressed in a suit of dingy brown, with a long rapier projecting from beneath his cloak at one side. His features, though quite in proportion with his size, possessed an expression of authority, blended, moreover, with considerable benevolence of character. "And so you have no luck, John Van Euel!" he said; "no luck! Now listen, then, like an idle rascal as you are, and I will help you to find some-that is, you know, if you will only assist me in what I am going to propose to you." "Oh ho!" thought John, "oh ho! there is to be a debtor and creditor account, then; go on, my mannikin! But I shrewdly suspect hoofs are to be seen under those fine buckled shoes, and I should not be surprised if that rapier yonder were a tail in disguise; so I'll be As the little man spoke, he put one hand upon the parapet, and jumping up, squatted himself upon the top, motioning to John to look over into the water. The latter did so, taking care not to approach too near to his extraordinary companion. On gazing into the thick and muddy canal, he beheld the water agitated as if by volcanic agency, boiling and eddying in a sort of whirlpool, immediately beneath the point occupied by the mysterious dwarf, and presently the strains of soft, but somewhat wild music were heard, gradually gaining strength. Apparently under the influence of the melody, the watery commotion, little by little, subsided; and at length John beheld a figure, which presented the appearance of a female, as if carved in marble; the face slightly turned from him, and the head bent down, while the hands were apparently earnestly employed with some occupation which he could not discriminate. All the sculptor's admiration for classic beauty (and he possessed considerable) was aroused, and gazing with his whole soul in his eyes, he was mortified to find a cloud pass across the moon, entirely hiding the vision from his view. Impatiently he waited for the returning light, but upon looking again into the water, nothing was to be seen but its inky gloomy surface. John turned to his companion, who was still sitting tailor-wise on the parapet. "Well, John!" he said, "that is the genius who guards all the treasure we have been talking of, and if I can procure an image as like her as possible, carved in white marble, I shall, by means of some potent charms I possess, be able to animate the figure, and obtain replies to the questions I shall put to her respecting the exact spot where the largest treasure is hidden. Now, I will be contented to pay you handsomely if you will do this business for me; make the figure as like her as possible. I know where you live, and I shall come myself and fetch it away this day six months;" and taking out a large purse filled with golden coin, "look," he continued, "I'll give you ten, twenty, fifty times what you see here?" "And what share of the treasure?" said John, who, like all idle fellows, was a bit of a speculator. The little man laughed heartily. "Don't be hard upon me, John," he said. "However, I'll tell you what I'll do (you must swear eternal secresy of course.) I'll promise you the half of what I get, and you may depend upon my honour. Now take the oath properly, man, upon my sword; and he proceeded to dictate the following doggrel, making John repeat each word after him : "I-John Van Euel-undertake And give up six months hence, provided John took this oath boldly. When he had concluded, the to ward off the blow; the next moment he felt a sharp pain in the member, and fell heavily to the ground, his companion's mirth still ringing in his ears. The sun was rising in the heavens, when John became conscious that he was sprawling on the bridge, a feeling of numbness painfully present in all his limbs; he rubbed his eyes, and thought what Bertha would say when he got home. "What a fool of a dream I have had," he said to himself, as he arose to make the best of his way back. At this moment a smarting pain in his hand struck his attention. There was a small incision in it, about half an inch in length, and the blood had congealed round it. "It is all true, then," said he, jumping up with alacrity. But John heeded not the wound; the strange beauty of the marble vision he had beheld tormented his brain; its exquisite grace had stirred up the torpid passions of his genius, and eager to grasp his chisel, John hurried home in a tolerably sober state. Bertha was watching at the door with an anxious air, and pale countenance, when he came in sight. How he longed to tell her all; but he kept his secret with some difficulty, as she hung sobbing about his neck. She soon saw the wound, however. "Why, John," she said, you have had a fall," and she tenderly bathed and wrapped it up. "This is the cut of a flint stone." John laughed at her anxiety. He saw nothing but the lovely statue. It seemed to stand before him, pointing the way to fortune; and already he beheld Bertha strutting to mass in a flowered cabinet gown, while he sported a cloak of Lyons velvet, and a feather as tall as the wealthiest burgomaster in Bruges. John commenced the statue. Early and late did he pursue his occupation, and as the figure grew into almost lifelike beauty beneath his hand, the form of the original became still more vividly impressed upon his mind. From the moment that he conveyed into his workroom, with the assistance of a fellow-journeyman, the rude block, obtained by the sale of some of his angel's heads, he laboured incessantly to perpetuate, in indelible lines, the features of the beautiful vision now ever present to his thoughts. He had begged Bertha not to question him, and she, satisfied in knowing him employed, and no longer frequenting his former profligate haunts, indulged her curiosity no further than to anticipate in all faith the result of his labours, and to speculate upon an object which served to redouble her exertion in providing for the wants of her family. John had a latent superstition that the dwarf would appear in flesh and blood, and worked on with energy and devotion. The six months passed away-the figure was complete. With rapture John found himself a finished sculptor. The first thing in the morning, the last thing at night, he visited his now beloved Atelier, where Art herself appeared embodied in the lineaments of the beautiful statue, the presiding genius of the place, which seemed almost to smile upon him, as he gazed proudly on its exquisite proportions. Day after day went by without bringing him intelligence of his extraordinary patron. He touched, and retouched, till he threw away the chisel in despair; still the dilatory little man came not. John, however, had tasted the sweets of mental, as well as bodily labour; it had become pleasant to him to feel his power, to see the ideal assume a palpable shape beneath his touch. Gradually another statue was commenced, and now the features of Bertha, her youngest born, an infant but a few weeks old, held in her arms, were transferred to the stone, and shone there a fair and gentle Madonna. The first figure was still, it is true, the adoration of his heart; it had taught him the joy of self-exertion; he loved it beyond expression; and even if the treacherous dwarf never came at all, the artist's ambition, which had always slumbered in his mind, now unobscured by indolence, was never quiet, but constantly whispered what he might become. So the time went on, and a year was past. Coming home one day, what was his surprise to find Bertha with her lap full of money, weeping in her little chamber! His first thought was, that his employer had arrived and fetched away the statue. Rushing wildly to the door of his work-room, he threw it open-the figure was indeed gone; but Bertha, smiling through her tears, implored his forgiveness, and told him she would show it him again if he would come with her. "The beautiful statue was safe; would he come?" They threaded the streets together, the heart of John anxiously beating in his bosom. Bertha led the way to the Prefecture; as they neared it, John was astonished to observe the hats of his fellow townsmen doffed with respectful admiration to the neatly attired but threadbare figures of himself and his wife. They entered the Hotel de Ville; it was thronged with people; the burghers had just been deciding upon a tutelary figure for the Chamber of Commerce. There were numerous productions from the first sculptors in Bruges, the excellence of which attested at once their proficiency and the ambition felt by all to occupy the pre-eminent position of the successful candidate. The murmur of voices was lulled as the young pair advanced up the hall. “Hush!” said the crowd, "here he is;" and following Bertha, who swiftly, but full of tears and blushes, preceded him, he perceived on a pedestal, high above all the rest, his own beloved model-the accepted statue-while underneath it was engraved, in golden letters, the one word-INDUSTRY. John Was the little man a real or unreal creation after all? an inhabitant of the world of fact, or of fantasy? always thought the first. To the successful sculptor, however, it mattered little. The mystery of the work's development was soon explained; overwhelmed by the offer of the burgomaster's gold, Bertha had sold the statue; and John had reason to bless her disobedience. Orders came rapidly in; employment never flagged, but became daily more attractive by habit; his profession was his joy, constituting alike the support and the happiness of his existence. One good quality also brought others along with it, for the virtues are sisters like the vices; and as the lifeless stone figured forth in succession their emblematic image, so the essential qualities themselves stepped each into her shrine in John's own breast, rendering his home their sacred precinct. The dwarf never appeared to claim his share, but the name of the mystic treasurer, that fair vision of the night, is well known. Fortune and Fame bow to her, and every reckless idler may learn from John Van Euel's dream, that the "Spirit of Industry" is the only guide to the Throne of Power and the Temple of Happiness. PORTIA. THERE is no greater error in the world than is committed by those who associate ugliness with age, and though the dictionaries may conjoin them, we maintain that not unfrequently good looks come with advancing years,—we mean the good looks of a benignant and intellectual countenance. There is a great moral beauty in the appearance of one, whose garb denotes that she has yielded a willing submission to the fixed decrees of our being, who having seen the joyous delights of youth and passed the honourable period of mature age, is content to throw aside the ornaments which once she wore, and, instead of masquerading in laces and velvets, to be seen in the simple and unostentatious apparel that befits her years. To the eye of affection, the grey hairs upon her brow are far more becoming than any artificialities that could be procured, and the pallor of her cheek more attractive than the sunniest glow of early loveliness. is when we look upon such a character as this, that we feel in their full force the veneration and regard which old age ought always to inspire. It |