have thought that Arabia was the very last
place it could have come from. The visitor
had only to propose to relate a story, and he
might stay as long as he liked.

"Too many cooks spoil the broth." The
Arabians say, ''If the sailors become too
numerous, the ship sinks." An admirable
comment on the mischief that arises from
conflicting counsels of superiors; but the
Scotch have a similar saying far more humorous,
graphic, and pungent; " Ower mony
masters—as the frog said to the harrow, while
it passed over him."

"It's difficult to get three heads under one
hat." (German). To make three people,
independent of each other, meet in one spot, is by
no means an easy thing to do at all times.

' Man proposes, but God disposes." (Scotch).
So Shakspeare says, in the line, " There's a
divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew
them as we may."

"Necessity hath no law." (Latin). It has
its own law.

"Respect and contempt spoil the world."
(Italian). Only when they are misplaced;
but rightly placed, they would reform the
world.

"When the heart is past hope, the face is past
shame." And when the face is past shame,
there is no hope in, or for, the heart. There
is no test of character greater than this. The
power of out-facing anything, shows that all
inward emotion is lost, or good for nothing.

"Familiarity breeds contempt." That is to
say, a gross, vulgar, and impertinent familiarity
—a familiarity dealing in uncleanly talk and
practical jokes; but familiarity, in the sense of
companionship, ought to breed nothing but
mutual regard and esteem, or else it ought to
cease. He who said that " no man was a
hero to his valet de chambre," was well
answered by (Carlyle said it, we think,) the
remark—" that was the fault of the valet."

"En tout temps le sage veille;" the wise
man is always awake. We should rather say,
the cunning man, the politician, or the worldly-
wise, because true wisdom does not trouble
itself with constant suspicions, nor with
constant alertness of mind. It has too much
matter for profound thought to be always
awake to external things. If a wise statesman
be meant, then it is all right; but not if
applied to a philosopher. Most of the following
(not all) are of the same class, and apply
only to men of the world:—" Le sage se conforme
à la vie de ses Compagnons,"—a wise
man conforms to the ways of his companions.
"Le plus sage se tait,"—he is wisest who holds
his tongue. "A fool wanders, a wise man
travels." He knows where he is going, and
what he would have. "Fools make feasts
and wise men eat them." (We should rather
say—wise men make feasts, and many people
eat them—but fools, never). ' The wisest
man," says Boileau, " is he who regards
others with mildness, and himself with
severity." " The wise man," says Confucius,
"inquires of himself the cause of his faults,
the madman asks others." "Wisdom," says
Socrates, "adorns riches, and shadows
poverty." (protects ? poverty.) " The wise man,"
says Bossuet, "ought to learn to profit by all
things—by the good and the ills of life, the
vices and the virtues of others, by his own
faults and his good actions." "The wise
man," says Molière, " is prepared for all
events." " The seat of knowledge," says
Hazlitt, "is in the head; of wisdom, in the
heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we
do not feel right."

A CRY FROM THE DUST!

NOT less immortal that, from birth,
I was a Pariah on the earth.

Not less a daughter, that my sire
Cursed me, his child, in drunken ire.

Not less a sister, that my brother
Fled from a broken-hearted mother.

God made me gentle; hunger came,
And fanned rebellion into flame.

God made me modest; who could dare
To taint what he had stamped as fair.

God made me beautiful and true;
But, oh, stern Man! what could I do!

I sickened, and I loathed the food
Bestowed with taunts and gibings rude.

I went in vain from door to door;
I begged for work—I asked no more.

Work—work—methought they might have given,
And earned another prayer in Heaven.

Work—work—they heeded not my cry;
God, too, seemed silent up on high.

I would have worked all night, all day,
To keep the hunger-fiend away.

I went again from door to door;
This time I begged for bread—once more.

They spurned me thence; 'twas then I fell,
And bade Hope, Virtue, Heaven, farewell.

NEEDLES.

WE have been to Redditch, that remarkable
little Worcestershire town, to see
needles made. While on that perch—for
Redditch crowns a high hill—while looking
abroad, in all directions, over a true English
country scene of hill and dale, orchard and
sloping fallow, humble church-tower, and
comfortable farmstead, we were compelled,
by our errand, to contrast this with some
very different places in which we had studied
needles. People who invent and use such
articles of convenience as needles must have
a good deal in common, however widely different
they must appear on the whole. How
many wants and wishes, designs and plans,
efforts and achievements, must be common to