adversaries with every stroke. Arbuthnot "plays his weapon like a tongue of flame." Addison draws up his light infantry in orderly array, and marches through sentence after sentence without having his ranks disordered or his line broken. Luther is different. His words are "half battles;" "his smiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave into the very heart of the matter." Gibbon's legions are heavily armed, and march with precision and dignity to the music of their own tramp. They are splendidly equipped, but a nice eye can discern a little rust beneath their fine apparel, and there are sutlers in his camp who lie, cog, and talk gross obscenity. Macaulay, brisk, lively, keen, and energetic, runs his thought rapidly through his sentence, and kicks out of the way every word which obstructs his passage. He reins in his steed only when he has reached his goal, and then does it with such celerity that he is nearly thrown backwards by the suddenness of his stoppage. Gifford's words are moss-troopers, that waylay innocent travellers and murder them for hire. Jeffrey is a fine "lance," with a sort of Arab swiftness in his movement, and runs an iron-clad horseman through the eye before he has had time to close his helmet. John Wilson's camp is a disorganized mass, who might do effectual service under better discipline, but who, under his lead, are suffered to carry on a rambling and predatory warfare, and disgrace their general by flagitious excesses. Sometimes they steal, sometimes swear, sometimes drink, and sometimes pray. Swift's words are porcupines' quills, which he throws with unerring aim at whoever approaches his lair. All of Ebenezer Elliot's words are gifted with huge fists, to pommel and bruise. Chatham and Mirabeau throw hot shot into their opponents' magazines. Talfourd's forces are orderly and disciplined, and march to the music of the Dorian flute; those of Keats keep time to the tones of the pipe of Phoebus; and the hard, harsh-featured battalions of Maginn are always preceded by a brass band. Hallam's word infantry can do much execution when they are not in each others' way. Pope's phrases are either daggers or rapiers. Willis's words are often tipsy with the champagne of the fancy, but even when they reel and stagger they keep the line of grace and beauty, and, though scattered at first by a fierce onset from graver cohorts, soon reunite without wound or loss. John Neal's forces are multitudinous, and fire briskly at every thing. They occupy all the provinces of letters, and are nearly useless from being spread over too much ground. Everett's weapons are ever kept in good order, and shine well in the sun; but they are little calculated for warfare, and rarely kill when they strike. Webster's words are thunderbolts, which sometimes miss the Titans at whom they are hurled, but always leave enduring marks when they strike. Hazlitt's verbal army is some

times drunk and surly, sometimes foaming with passion, sometimes cool and malignant, but, drunk or sober, are ever dangerous to cope with. Some of Tom Moore's words are shining dirt, which he flings with excellent aim. This list might be indefinitely extended, and arranged with more regard to merit and chronology. My own words, in this connection, might be compared to ragged, undisciplined militia, which could be easily routed by a charge of horse, and which are apt to fire into each others' faces.

WIT AND HUMOR.

Wit was originally a general name for all the intellectual owers, meaning the faculty which kens, perceives, knows, understands; it was gradually narrowed in its signification to express merely the resemblance between ideas; and lastly, to note that resemblance when it occasioned ludicrous surprise.

It marries ideas lying wide apart, by a sudden jerk of the understanding. Humor originally meant moisture, a signification it metaphorically retains, for it is the very juice of the mind, oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertilizing wherever it falls. Wit exists by antipathy; humor, by sympathy. Wit laughs at things; humor laughs with them. Wit lashes external appearances, or cunningly exaggerates single foibles into character; humor glides into the heart of its object, looks lovingly on the infirmities it detects, and represents the whole man. Wit is abrupt, darting, scornful, and tosses its analogies in your face; humor is slow and shy, insinuating its fun into your heart. Wit is negative, analytical, destructive; humor is creative. The couplets of Pope are witty, but Sancho Panza is a humorous creation. Wit, when earnest, has the earnestness of passion, seeking to destroy; humor has the earnestness of affection, and would lift up what is seemingly low, into our charity and love. Wit, bright, rapid, and blasting as the lightning, flashes, strikes, and vanishes in an instant; humor, warm and all-embracing as the sunshine, bathes its objects in a genial and abiding light. Wit implies hatred or contempt of folly and crime, produces its effects by brisk shocks of surprise, uses the whip of scorpions and the branding-iron,-stabs, stings, pinches, tortures, goads, teases, corrodes, undermines; humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic, and the true, by whose light it surveys and shapes their opposites. It is a humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence, promoting tolerant views of life,-bridging over the spaces which separate the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble. Old Dr. Fuller's remark, that a negro is "the image of God cut in ebony," is humorous; Horace Smith's inversion of it, that the taskmaster is "the image of the devil cut in ivory,”

is witty. Wit can coexist with fierce and malignant passions; but humor demands good feeling and fellow-feeling,-feeling not merely for what is above us, but for what is around and beneath us.

THE LITERATURE OF MIRTH.

The ludicrous side of life, like the serious side, has its literature; and it is a literature of untold wealth. Mirth is a Proteus, changing its shape and manner with the thousand diversities of individual character, from the most superficial gayety, to the deepest, most earnest humor. Thus, the wit of the airy, featherbrained Farquhar glances and gleams like heat-lightning; that of Milton blasts and burns like the bolt. Let us glance carelessly over this wide field of comic writers, who have drawn new forms of mirthful being from life's ludicrous side, and note, here and there, a wit or humorist. There is the humor of Goëthe, like his own summer morning, mirthfully clear; and there is the tough and knotty humor of old Ben Jonson, at times ground down at the edge to a sharp cutting scorn, and occasionally hissing out stinging words, which seem, like his own Mercury's, "steeped in the very brine of conceit, and sparkle like salt in fire." There is the lithe, springy sarcasm, the hilarious badinage, the brilliant, careless disdain, which sparkle and scorch along the glistening page of Holmes. There is the sleepy smile that sometimes lies so benignly on the sweet and serious diction of old Isaak Walton. There is the mirth of Dickens, twinkling now in some ironical insinuation, and anon winking at you with pleasant maliciousness, its distended cheeks fat with suppressed glee, and then, again, coming out in broad gushes of humor, overflowing all banks and bounds of conventional decorum. There is Sydney Smith,-sly, sleek, swift, subtle,-a moment's motion, and the human mouse is in his paw! There, in a corner, look at that petulant little man, his features working with thought and pain, his lips wrinkled with a sardonic smile; and, see! the immortal personality has received its last point and polish in that toiling brain, and, in a strait, luminous line, with a twang like Scorn's own arrow, hisses through the air the unerring shaft of Pope,-to

"Dash the proud gamester from his gilded car,

And bare the base heart that lurks beneath a star."

There, moving gracefully through that carpeted parlor, mark that dapper, diminutive Irish gentleman. The moment you look at him, your eyes are dazzled with the whizzing rockets and hissing • wheels, streaking the air with a million sparks, from the pyro

technic brain of Anacreon Moore. Again, cast your eyes from that blinding glare and glitter to the soft and beautiful brilliancy, the winning grace, the bland banter, the gliding wit, the diffusive humor, which make you in love with all mankind, in the charming pages of Washington Irving.

Let us now turn to the benevolent mirth of Addison and Steele, whose glory it was to redeem polite literature from moral depravity, by showing that wit could chime merrily in with the voice of virtue, and who smoothly laughed away many a vice of the national character, by that humor which tenderly touches the sensitive point with an evanescent grace and genial glee. And here let us not forget Goldsmith, whose delicious mirth is of that rare quality which lies too deep for laughter; which melts softly into the mind, suffusing it with inexpressible delight, and sending the soul dancing joyously into the eyes to utter its merriment in liquid glances, passing all the expression of tone. And here, though we cannot do him justice, let us remember the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne, deserving a place second to none in that band of humorists, whose beautiful depth of cheerful feeling is the very poetry of mirth. In ease, grace, delicate sharpness of satire, in a felicity of touch which often surpasses the felicity of Addison, in a subtlety of insight which often reaches farther than the subtlety of Steele,-the humor of Hawthorne presents traits so fine as to be almost too excellent for popularity, as, to every one who has attempted their criticism, they are too refined for statement. The brilliant atoms flit, hover, and glance before our minds, but the subtle sources of their ethereal light lie beyond our analysis,

"And no speed of ours avails

To hunt upon their shining trails."

And now let us breathe a benison on these our mirthful benefactors, these fine revellers among human weaknesses, these stern, keen satirists of human depravity. Wherever Humor smiles away the fretting thoughts of care, or supplies that antidote which cleanses

"the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff That weighs upon the heart,"

wherever Wit riddles folly, abases pride, or stings iniquity,there glides the cheerful spirit, or glitters the flashing thought, of these bright enemies of stupidity and gloom. Thanks to them, hearty thanks, for teaching us that the ludicrous side of life is its wicked side, no less than its foolish; that in a lying world there is still no mercy for falsehood; that Guilt, however high it may lift its brazen front, is never beyond the lightnings of scorn; and

that the lesson they teach agrees with the lesson taught by all experience, that life in harmony with reason is the only life safe from laughter; that life in harmony with virtue is the only life safe from contempt.

JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND,

THE author of Timothy Titcomb's Letters, whose fame has suddenly become so wide-spread, was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, July 24, 1819. When he had partially completed his studies preparatory to entering college, his health became enfeebled by too severe application, and he concluded, after a period of relaxation, to study medicine, which he did, in the mean time engaging in teaching as a means of support. In 1845, he took his degree of M.D., at the Berkshire Medical College, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and removed to Springfield to practise his profession, and shortly afterwards was married to Elizabeth L. Chapin, of that city. But, his practice for the first two years not being adequate to his wants, he accepted the offer of a situation as teacher of a private school at Richmond, Virginia. After being there three months, he received the appointment of Superintendent of Public Schools in Vicksburg, Mississippi, which he accepted. While there, he wrote frequently for the press; but, after discharging the duties of his office to great satisfaction for a year and a half, he received the offer of the editorial department of the "Springfield Republican," which he accepted, and at that post he has remained ever since, discharging its duties with such singular tact and ability, that that journal is without precedent or parallel in our land as a successful country paper.

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In 1854, Dr. Holland wrote for the "Republican," in successive numbers, the history of the four western counties of Massachusetts, which was afterwards published in two volumes. In 1857 appeared The Bay Path, a novel founded on the colonial history of his previous work, which was well received here, and warmly commended in the London "Athenæum." But the work which has given Dr. Holland most fame, and which we rejoice to know has put more money in his purse," (having gone through nine editions in twelve weeks,) is the volume entitled Timothy Titcomb's Letters to Young People, published in 1858. These Letters first appeared in the "Republican," under the signature of Timothy Titcomb, and attracted universal attention for their beauty of style, purity of English, and sound common sense. The advice contained in them is excellent, entirely practical, sufficiently minute, and eminently judicious,-intended to make, not angels, but useful and happy men and women; and they richly deserve all the popularity they have received. The same year, outside of his laborious editorial duties, he wrote Bitter Sweet, which was published by Scribner. It is a sort of pastoral poem, unique in its structure, and has been well received. The scene of this poem is a New England Thanksgiving, at which the gathered family, after the bountiful repast and the pleasantries of the evening, talk far