like alloy in gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it: for these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet."

"He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who for the time hardly feels the hurt: and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolors of But above all-believe it-the sweetest can

death. ticle is Now let thy servant depart in peace'-when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations." "Revenge is a kind of wild justice-which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over he is superior."

"The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the vir tue of adversity is fortitude."

'It is a strange desire to seek power, and lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over one's self."

"Of all kind of men, God is the least beholden unto kings; for he doth most for them, and they do ordinarily least for him."

"We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom; certainly there is a great difference between the cunning man and the wise man, not only in point of honesty but in point of ability."

"Suspicions among thoughts are like bats among birds-they ever fly by twilight."

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Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire

them; and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use: that is a wisdom without them, and won by observation. Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to be swallowed,—and some few to be chewed and digested. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact And, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, have a present wit; and if he read little, have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise, poets witty, the mathematics subtle, natural philosophy deep, morals grave, logic and rhetoric able to contend."

man.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground. Judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly, virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue."

However admirable these passages may be, a celebrated writer remarks, that Bacon's greatest performance is the first book of his Novum Organon. All the peculiarities of his great mind are found there in the highest perfection. Every part of the book blazes with wit, but with wit which is employed only to illustrate and decorate truth. No buok ever made

so great a revolution in the mode of thinking, overthrew so many prejudices, introduced so many new opinions; yet no book was ever written in a less contentious spirit.

CERVANTES.

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA was born at Alcala de Henares, in Castile, on the 9th of October, 1547. His family was originally from Galicia, and both ancient and honorable-no trifling qualities among so punctilious a race as the Spaniards. His father appears to have been in somewhat indigent circumstances; yet he designed his son for one of the learned professions, and at an early age sent him to Madrid for his education, where he studied for some years under the care of Doctor Lopez de Hoyos, a philologer and theologian.

This learned man occasionally published small volumes of poetical miscellanies; among which he included ballads, eclogues, and other pieces from the hand of his "dear and beloved disciple, Miguel de Cervantes." These juvenile efforts probably brought some notice upon the author, for in 1569 we find him in the train of Cardinal Aquaviva, at Rome, where he resided a year in the capacity of chamberlain to that dignitary. This post, according to the manners of that age, would have been coveted by persons far above him in rank and fortune, and might have been serviceable to Cervantes, by affording him an intro