(1) 'Calcutta Review,' article on 'Romance and Reality of Indian Life.'
(2) Joseph Lancaster was only twenty years of age when (in 1798)he opened his first school in a spare room in his father's house, which was soon filled with the destitute children of the neighbourhood. The room was shortly found too small for the numbers seeking admission, and one place after another was hired, until at length Lancaster had a special building erected, capable of accommodating a thousand pupils; outside of which was placed the following notice:--"All that will, may send their children here, and have them educated freely; and those that do not wish to have education for nothing, may pay for it if they please." Thus Joseph Lancaster was the precursor of our present system of National Education.
(3) A great musician once said of a promising but passionless cantatrice--"She sings well, but she wants something, and in that something everything. If I were single, I would court her; Iwould marry her; I would maltreat her; I would break her heart;and in six months she would be the greatest singer in Europe!"--BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE,(4) Prescot's 'Essays,' art. Cervantes.
(5) A cavalier, named Ruy de Camera, having called upon Camoens to furnish a poetical version of the seven penitential psalms, the poet, raising his head from his miserable pallet, and pointing to his faithful slave, exclaimed: "Alas! when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and blest with the love of ladies; but now, I am a forlorn deserted wretch! See--there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating FOURPENCE to purchase a little coals. I have not them to give him!" The cavalier, Sousa quaintly relates, in his 'Life of Camoens,' closed his heart and his purse, and quitted the room. Such were the grandees of Portugal!--Lord Strangford's REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF CAMOENS, 1824.
(6) See chapter v. p. 125.
(7) A Quaker called on Bunyan one day with "a message from the Lord,"saying he had been to half the gaols of England, and was glad at last to have found him. To which Bunyan replied: "If the Lord sent thee, you would not have needed to take so much trouble to find me out, for He knew that I have been in Bedford Gaol these seven years past."(8) Prynne, besides standing in the pillory and having his ears cut off, was imprisoned by turns in the Tower, Mont Orgueil (Jersey), Dunster Castle, Taunton Castle, and Pendennis Castle. He after-wards pleaded zealously for the Restoration, and was made Keeper of the Records by Charles II. It has been computed that Prynne wrote, compiled, and printed about eight quarto pages for every working-day of his life, from his reaching man's estate to the day of his death. Though his books were for the most part appropriated by the trunkmakers, they now command almost fabulous prices, chiefly because of their rarity.
(9) He also projected his 'Review' in prison--the first periodical of the kind, which pointed the way to the host of 'Tatlers,'
'Guardians,' and 'Spectators,' which followed it. The 'Review'
consisted of 102 numbers, forming nine quarto volumes, all of which were written by De Foe himself, while engaged in other and various labours.
(10) A passage in the Earl of Carlisles Lecture on Pope--'Heaven was made for those who have failed in this world'--struck me very forcibly several years ago when I read it in a newspaper, and became a rich vein of thought, in which I often quarried, especially when the sentence was interpreted by the Cross, which was failure apparently."--LIFE AND LETTERS OF ROBERTSON (of Brighton), ii. 94.
(11) "Not all who seem to fail, have failed indeed;Not all who fail have therefore worked in vain:
For all our acts to many issues lead;
And out of earnest purpose, pure and plain, Enforced by honest toil of hand or brain, The Lord will fashion, in His own good time, (Be this the labourer's proudly-humble creed,)Such ends as, to His wisdom, fitliest chime With His vast love's eternal harmonies.
There is no failure for the good and wise:
What though thy seed should fall by the wayside And the birds snatch it;--yet the birds are fed;Or they may bear it far across the tide, To give rich harvests after thou art dead."POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE, 1848.
(12) "What is it," says Mr. Helps, "that promotes the most and the deepest thought in the human race? It is not learning; it is not the conduct of business; it is not even the impulse of the affections. It is suffering; and that, perhaps, is the reason why there is so much suffering in the world. The angel who went down to trouble the waters and to make them healing, was not, perhaps, entrusted with so great a boon as the angel who benevolently inflicted upon the sufferers the disease from which they suffered."--BREVIA.
(13) These lines were written by Deckar, in a spirit of boldness equal to its piety. Hazlitt has or said of them, that they "ought to embalm his memory to every one who has a sense either of religion, or philosophy, or humanity, or true genius."(14) Reboul, originally a baker of Nismes, was the author of many beautiful poems--amongst others, of the exquisite piece known in this country by its English translation, entitled 'The Angel and the Child.'
(15) 'Cornhill Magazine,' vol. xvi. p. 322.
(16) 'Holy Living and Dying,' ch. ii. sect. 6.
(17) Ibid., ch. iii. sect. 6.
(18) Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' vol. x. p. 40.
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