Works of taste are those which are employed about the beauties of nature, and whatever is excellent in the fine arts: The pleasure of such works arises from the notion that there is some real excellence, some superiority in those things that please, to those that do not please.Dr. Reed.

So far as the imagination and the passions are concerned, I believe it is true that the reason is little consulted; but where disposition, where decorum, where congruity are concerned-in short, wherever the best taste differs from the worst, I am convinced that the understanding operates, and nothing else.-Dugald Stewart.

Once generate a taste for whatsoever things are noble, beautiful, and good, and you, raise up a disposition and wish to secure them.-Dr. Jones.

Good hopes may always be entertained of those minds which have a taste for the polite arts, which is always favourable to social virtues : but he who is devoid thereof, is a most unpromising youth, prone to low gratifications and vulgar companions.-Dr. Blair.

Science is as much indebted to literature, as literature is to science.-Dr. Jones.

It is of much consequence in the education of the young to encourage their instinctive taste for the beauty and sublimity of Nature. While it opens a source of pure and permanent enjoyment, it has consequences on the character and happiness of future life which they are unable to foresee. Alison.

Works of taste are calculated to give men an interest in every being that surrounds them, and amid the hours of curiosity and delight, to awaken those latent feelings of benevolence and sympathy from which all the moral and intellectual greatness of men arise.—Alison.

A cultivation of the instinctive love of the beautiful and sublime lays in the mind the foundation of an early and a manly piety; and amid the magnificent system of material signs in which men reside, gives them the mighty

key which can alone interpret them: it bids them look upon the universe which they inhabit, not as the abode only of human cares and human joys, but as the temple of the living God.-Alison.

The attentive mind,

By this harmonious action on her powers,
Becomes herself harmonious: wont so oft
In outward things to meditate the charm
Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home
To find a kindred order, to exert
Within herself this elegance of love,

This fair-inspired delight: Her tempered powers
Refine at length, and every passion wears

A chaster, milder, more attractive mien.-Akenside.
It tells the heart,

He meant, he made us to behold and love
What He beholds and loves, the general orb
Of life and being; to be great like Him,
Beneficent and active.-Akenside.

Thus the men,

Whom Nature's works can charm, with God himself
Hold converse: grown familiar, day by day,
With his conceptions, act upon his plan,
And form to this the relish of their souls.

Akenside.

Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.

The man that hath no music in himself
Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils ;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus :

Let no such man be trusted.-Shakspeare.

Shakspeare.

Omnes artes, quæ ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur.-Cicero.

Ingenuas dedicisse fideliter artes

Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.-Ovid. Cognitione naturæ et scientia beati sumus.-Cicero.

CONCLUSION.

THEME XLV. Why should a whole Class be "turned down," when one or two Boys of it do not know the appointed Lesson?

PART I.. "PRO.",

INTRODUCTION.-It has been customary in large schools, from time immemorial, to punish a whole class for the default of one or two of its members. The question to be considered is this, By what authority, and by what arguments, can such a long-established custom be defended?

1ST REASON.-It must be both wise and just, because it is agreeable to the dealings of God with man; and as the Judge of the whole earth can neither do wrong nor act unwisely, it may be presumed that his creatures are justified when they follow his example.

2ND REASON.-It cannot be considered peculiar, because it is in exact conformity with the general policy of human governments: Thus when King John offended the Pope, the whole kingdom of England was laid under an interdict.

3RD REASON.-It is not really unkind, because the same custom obtains in social and domestic life.

4TH REASON. It is not unnatural; but, on the other hand, is sanctioned by the whole economy of Nature: Thus if one member of the body is diseased, or inattentive to its proper functions, the whole body is made a sufferer. 5TH REASON. It is agreeable to analogy, because a class is a corporate body, and not an aggregation of detached and independent parts. In a civic corporation, the

whole body is responsible for the act of any one member in his corporate capacity, so also a whole class should be amenable for the conduct of each individual in the "same form."

6TH REASON. It is found by experience to be most excellent policy. Refractory boys, who are not to be reduced to obedience in any other way, may be reclaimed in this. Many a stubborn temper which would bear up, "like a flint," with the severest corporal punishment, or sullenly consign himself to long solitude, would shudder to involve a whole class of his companions in his own punishment. This feeling is in accordance with that of David, when he saw his subjects dying by thousands in punishment of his own pride, he cried in agony to his angry God, "I have sinned, but as for these sheep, what have they done ?"

7TH REASON. It is no more unjust to punish a whole class for the default of one or two of its members, than to reward a whole school by a holiday for extraordinary individual merit or success.

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8TH REASON.- It is almost essential for the master, who could not afford time to hear the same lesson twice through.

SIMILES. -One comet disturbs the motion of a whole system.

The Romans held any day unlucky (nefastus) for ever, on which any defeat had ever been sustained by them: as the sixteenth of June, called dies Alliensis, because the Roman army was cut to pieces by the Gauls on that day, near the banks of the river Allia. B. C. 390.

If there are two queen-bees in one hive, the supernumerary queen is banished, and a whole colony compelled to "flight" with her.

When one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and when one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it.-1 Cor. xii. 26.

On superior powers

Were we to press, inferior might be ours;

Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed: From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,

Tenth or ten-thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

Pope.

If any link of a chain be broken, the whole chain is affected.

The contagion of disease shows plainly how the sound are often involved in the sufferings of the unsound.

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.-All the posterity of Adam suffer death and disease "through the disobedience of one."-Rom. v. 19.

All Israel suffered, and 70,000 died of the pestilence, because David sinned "in numbering the people."-2 Sam. xxiv.

All the mariners of the ship in which Jonah sailed were in peril of their lives, because Jonah was disobedient to the commands of God.-Jon. i. 4.

All Egypt suffered by numerous plagues, because Pharaoh "hardened his heart and would not let the children of Israel go."-Exod. iv. to xiv.

All the sons and daughters, as well as the oxen, asses, and sheep of Achan were stoned to death, because Achan stole "a goodly Babylonish garment and 200 shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight," from the cursed spoil of the city of Jericho.-Josh. vii. 21. 24.

The city of Troy was burnt with fire, and its inhabitants put to the sword, because Paris eloped with the wife of Menelaus.

If a father is attainted, all his posterity suffer the loss of his rank and title.

Boroughs are disfranchised for the corruption of certain of its voters.

In cases of rebellion, citizens, regiments, and ships'