Cicero. If you can say any thing whatever, Philiscus, which may help to remove this darkness from my mind, and to restore me to myself, most ready am I to hear you.

Philiscus.-Come, then, let us consider whether these are really evils which have befallen you; if they are, how they can be remedied. First of all, I see you in possession of perfect bodily health, a good which, in the order of nature, may be reckoned the first. Next, you have a sufficiency of all the necessaries of life, which may be accounted the second good according to nature. Possessing health, then, and in no danger of want, you surely have the means of happiness in your own power.

Cicero. But of what avail, Philiscus, is mere corporeal good, when some great affliction is devouring the soul? Is it possible, think you, in the pleasures of sense, to forget the pangs of the mind?

Philiscus. But, at least, you will agree with me in thinking that our mental maladies are, in a great degree, under our own control, certainly much more so than our bodily ills. The body carries in itself the seeds of incurable disorder; but the mind, being of a divine nature, is easily brought back to a state of order and harmony. Your afflictions are mental, not corporeal. With an exertion of ordinary energy, you could cast them from you.

Cicero. Do you then look upon ignominy and flight as evils of such very trivial magnitude? To be deprived of home and of friends, to be driven from one's country with contumely, to wander an exile in a strange land, an object of laughter to one's enemies, and a cause of disgrace to one's kindred?

Philiscus. Frankly, yes. Man is constituted of two clements, a mind and a body, to each of which nature has assigned certain specific evils and specific goods. Disgrace and exile, with other things of a like kind, are evils of custom and opinion merely. They hurt, neither the body nor the mind. The body is neither bruised nor made sick by them, nor does the mind become less intelligent or less just, in consequence of them. And why? because they are not, natu

rally and in themselves, evils. Just so neither is honorable station, nor a residence in one's own country, naturally good.

2. Consider, too, how variable human opinion is on such subjects. The very same things which are reckoned disgraceful, at one place or period, are lauded at another; and an action which in Greece might deserve a statue, would very possibly be regarded, in India, as an atrocious crime. One would think i' ridiculous enough, if one were to hear of a vote being taken, declaring a certain person to be sick or to have a depraved heart. Disease and depravity are evils, simply because nature has made them so. Human opinion can add no force to the decrees of nature, nor can it substitute its own decrees for hers.

3. What is to be an exile? It is to be forced to live un

willingly out of one's own country. "To live out of one's own country," does that constitute the evil? How many thousands are there who do so voluntarily, thinking it no evil at all! But "unwillingly!" For myself, I do not see how this unwillingness can, in any case, appertain to a wise man. At any rate, if it is this which constitutes the evil of exile, the remedy is in your own power. You can live as willingly in Macedonia as in Rome. There is truth in the old saying, that we ought not to require things to happen as we wish, but rather to wish for such things as do of necessity happen.

4. Our lot in life is not of our own choosing. But such as it pleases Providence to assign unto us; such, willingly or unwillingly, we must accept. If, however, it is not merely the ignominy and the exile which afflict you, but the fact, that, while you had not only done no injury to your country, but, on the other hand, actually merited rewards for most important services rendered to her, you should thus be banished and dishonored, consider, I pray you, that, it having been once allotted that you were to fall, it, at least, happened well and fortunately that you fell without guilt.

5. You had toiled in behalf of your fellow-citizens, not in a private capacity, but as consul; not unauthorized and officiously, but in obedience to the decrees of the Senate; not out of se

ditious views, but with the best and purest intentions. Certain ambitious and vindictive men conspired to destroy you. It is for them to mourn over the injustice of their conduct. To bear manfully on your part, whatever good or evil Providence sees fit to send upon you, is both praiseworthy and neces

sary.

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6. What can it matter whether you are to pass the remainder your life in Macedon or elsewhere? Place can cause neither happiness nor misery. The mind is its own place, and it is there that we are to seek our country and our happiness. Aware of this, Camillus3 went cheerfully to dwell in Ardea. Conscious of this, Scipio lived without murmuring at Liternum. Need I mention Aristides or Themistocles, whom exile only made more glorious? Or Solon,' who was a voluntary exile for ten years?

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7. It is useless to repine at our lot. We shall not, by our murmuring, escape what is assigned us, and we shall certainly add to our misfortunes the painful reflection that we grieve in vain. If you will be persuaded by me, Cicero, you shall select for a habitation some retired spot by the sea-shore, and there devote the rest of your life to study, and to the composition of literary works. In the delights of letters and philosophy, in the desire of being useful to men, in the hope of the ap plause of after ages, your ambition would find ample scope, and your peace of mind be assured.

8. The hill of the Muses, my Cicero, is above tempests, always clear and calm; a hill of the goodliest discovery that man can have, being a prospect upon all the errors and wan、 derings of the present and former times. Nay, from some cliff, the eye ranges beyond the horizon of the present time, and catches no obscure glimpses of the times to come. So that, if one would, indeed, lead a life that unites safety and dignity, pleasure and merit,-if one would win admiration without envy,—if one would be in the feast, and not in the throng,—in the light, and not in the heat,-let him embrace the life of study and contemplation.

LESSON LXXVI.

LOOK ALOFT.

J. LAWRENCE.

1. In the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale Are around and above, if thy footing should fail,— If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart,"Look aloft," and be firm, and be fearless of heart.

2. If the friend who embraced in prosperity's glow, With a smile for each joy, and a tear for each woe, Should betray thee when sorrows, like clouds, are arrayed, "Look aloft" to the friendship which never shall fade.

3. Should the visions which hope spreads in light to thine eye, Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly, Then turn, and, through tears of repentant regret, "Look aloft" to the Sun that is never to set.

4. Should they who are nearest and dearest thy heart,— Thy friends and companions,-in sorrow depart, "Look aloft" from the darkness and dust of the tomb, To that soil where "affection is ever in bloom."

5. And, O! when Death comes in his terrors, to cast
His fears on the future, his pall on the past,

In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart,
And a smile in thine eye, "LOOK ALOFT," and depart.

LESSON LXXVII.

MONUMENTS OF HUMAN GRANDEUR PERISH.

COLLYER.

1. THE monuments of human greatness yield in succession to the destroying influence of time. Whatever is magnificent, or beautiful, or excellent, possesses only a temporary influence, and commands only a transient admiration; in the course of a few years, or, at most, a few ages, imagination is required to

supply departed graces, and genius mourns over extinguished glory.

2. To man, in his collective strength, nothing seems impossible, and few things appear even difficult. He has dared every thing; and he has achieved so much as amply to repay him for his labors. The extent of sovereignty which he grasped, when he stretched his scepter over numberless provinces, and planted the line of his dominion from sea to sea, demonstrated the unbounded character of his ambition, and the incalculable variety of his resources.

3. The stupendous productions of art, on which he inscribed his victories, and which he intended as the pillars of his fame, have combined and exhibited all that is sublime in conception, and all that is graceful in execution. Could he have attached durability to these, his triumph would have been complete,— he would have bound time to his chariot wheels, and rendered the monuments of his greatness coëval with the existence of the heavenly bodies.

4. But that irresistible power has dissolved all the associations which he formed, and overthrown all the structures which he raised. He touched the seats of empire with his commanding scepter, and the thrones of the earth crumbled into dust. Scarcely was the head of the monarch laid beneath the sod, before his dominion perished. Scarcely the active hand of the warrior stiffened in death, ere the provinces which he had won, revolted, and another hero arose to run the same career of danger and oppression, to mark out the globe for himself, and to resign, in his turn, a crown so hardly achieved.

5. Of Nineveh,-of Babylon,-we have few remains. Of Egypt we have only characters of degradation. Of Rome there exist but the melancholy fragments of ruined grandeur. With the respective empires, the monuments of their power have been defaced or destroyed. Time has wasted the gardens, prostrated the Colossus, dilapidated the Temples, unraveled the Labyrinth, broken down the Mausoleum upon its dead, and left the Pyramids to mark the progress of his effacing hand, and to deride the folly of human ambition.