FRAGMENTS FROM JEREMY TAYLOR. THE sermon on the Day of Judgment is usually acknowledged to be the sublimest effort of Taylor's oratory, and proves that he was equally at home in the solemn and terrible, as in dealing with gentler emotions and softer themes. A brief extract from this celebrated discourse will sufficiently illustrate its graphic power and awful grandeur: "Consider what infinite multitudes of angels, and men, and women, shall then appear! It is a huge assembly when the men of one kingdom, the men of one age in a single province, are gathered together in heaps and confusion of disorder; but then, all kingdoms of all ages, all the armies that ever mustered, all that world that Augustus Cæsar taxed, all those hundred of millions that were slain in all the Roman wars, from Numa's time till Italy was broken into principalities and small exarchates: all these, and all that can come into numbers, and that did descend from the loins of Adam, shall at once be represented; to which account, if we add the armies of heaven, the nine orders of blessed spirits, and the infinite numbers in every order, we may suppose the numbers fit to express the majesty of that God, and the terror of that Judge, who is the Lord and Father of all that unimaginable multitude! "In that great multitude we shall meet all those who by their example and their holy precepts, have, like tapers, enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousness, enlightened us, and taught us to walk in the paths of justice Here men shall meet the partners of their sins, and them that drank the round when they crowned their heads with folly and forgetfulness, and their cups with wines and noises. There shall you see that poor perishing soul, whom thou didst tempt to adultery and wantonness, to drunkenness or perjury, to rebellion or an evil interest, by power or craft, by witty discourses or deep dissembling, by scandal or a snare, by evil example or a pernicious counsel, by malice or unwariness. That soul that cries to those rocks to cover her, if it had not been for thy perpetual temptation, might have followed the Lamb in a white robe; and that poor man that is clothed with shame and flames of fire, would have shined in glory, but that thou didst force him to be partner of thy baseness." SIN ITS INSIDIOUS PROGRESS. "I have seen the little purls of a spring sweat through the bottom of a bank, and intenerate the stubborn pavement, till it hath made it fit for the impression of a child's foot; and it was despised, like the descending pearls of a misty morning, till it had opened its way and made a stream large enough to carry away the ruins of the undermined strand, and to invade the neighboring gardens: but then the despised drops were grown into an artificial river, and an intolerable mischief. So are the first entrances of sin stopped with the antidotes of a hearty prayer, and checked into sobriety by the age of a reverend man or the counsels of a single sermon: but when such beginnings are neglected, and our religion hath not in it so much philosophy as to think any thing evil as long as we can endure it, they grow up to ulcers and pestilential evils; they destroy the soul by their abode, who at their first entry might have been killed with the pressure of a little finger." HOPE. "Hope is like the wing of an angel soaring up to heaven, and bears our prayers to the throne of God." HUMILITY. "All the world, all that we are, and all that we have, our bodies and our souls, our actions and our sufferings, our conditions at home, our accidents abroad, our many sins, and our seldom virtues, are as so many arguments to make our souls dwell low in the deep valley of humility." CHEERFULNESS. "But cheerfulness and a festival spirit fills the soul full of harmony-it composes music for churches and hearts-it makes and publishes glorification of God-it produces thankfulness, and serves the end of charity; and, when the oil of gladness runs over, it makes bright and tall emissions of light and holy fire, reaching up to a cloud, and making joy round about; and, therefore, since it is so innocent, and may be so pious and full of holy advantage, whatever can innocently minister to this holy joy, does set forward the work of religion and charity. And, indeed, charity itself, which is the vertical top of all religion, is nothing else but a union of joys concentrated in the heart, and reflected from all the angels of our life and intercourse. It is a rejoicing in God, a gladness in our neighbor's good, a pleasure in doing good, a rejoicing with him; and without love, we cannot have any joy at all. It is this that makes children to be a pleasure, and friendship to be so noble and divine a thing and upon this account it is certain that all that which innocently makes a man cheerful, does also make him charitable; for grief, and age, and sickness, and weariness, these are peevish and troublesome; but mirth and cheerfulness is content, and civil, and compliant, and communicative, and loves to do good, and swells up to felicity only upon the wings of charity." THE COMMON LOT." “I have read of a fair young German gentleman, who living, often refused to be pictured, but put off the importunity of his friends' desire, by giving way, that after a few days' burial, they might send a painter to his vault, and, if they saw cause for it, draw the image of his death unto the life. They did so, and found his face half eaten, and his midriff and backbone full of serpents; and so he stands pictured among his armed ancestors. So does the fairest beauty change, and it will be as bad with you and me; and then what servants shall we have to wait on us in the grave? what friends to visit us what officious people to cleanse away the moist and unwholesome cloud reflected upon our faces from the sides of the weeping vaults, which are the longest weepers for our funeral?" GENERAL BENEVOLENCE AND FRIENDSHIP. "A good man is a friend to all the world; and he is not truly charitable that does not wish well, and do good to all mankind in what he can. But though we must pray for all men, yet we say special litanies for brave kings and holy prelates, and the wise guides of our souls, for our brethren and relations, our wives and children." SYMPATHY. "If you do but see a maiden carried to her grave a little before her intended marriage, or an infant die before the birth of reason, nature hath taught us to pay a tributary tear. Alas! your eyes will behold the ruin of many families, which though they sadly have deserved, yet mercy is not delighted at the spectacle; and therefore God places a watery cloud in the eye, that when the light of heaven shines upon it, it may produce a rainbow to be a sacrament and a memorial that God and the sons of God do not love to see a man perish.”* SUPERSTITION. "I have seen a harmless dove made dark with an artificial night, and her eyes sealed and locked up with a little quill, soaring upwards and flying with amazement, fear, and undiscerning wing; she made towards heaven, but knew not that she was made a train and an instrument, to teach her enemy to prevail upon her and all her defenceless kindred. So is a superstitious man, jealous and blind, forward and mistaken; he runs towards heaven as he thinks, but he chooses foolish paths, and out of fear takes any thing that he is told; or fancies and guesses concerning God, by measures taken from his own diseases and imperfections." CERTAINTY OF DEATH. "All the successions of time, all the changes in nature, all the varieties of light and darkness, the thousand thousands of accidents in this world, and every contingency to every man, and to every creature, doth preach our funeral sermon, and calls us to look and see how the old sexton Time throws up the earth and digs a grave, where we must lay our sins or our sorrows, and sow our bodies, till they rise again in a fair or intolerable eternity." ADVERSITY. "All is well as long as the sun shines, and the fair breath of heaven gently wafts us to our own purposes. But if you will try the excellency, and feel the work of faith, place the man in a persecution; let him ride in a storm; let his bones be broken with sorrow, and his eyelids loosed with sickness; let his bread be dipped with tears, and all the daughters of music brought low; let us come to sit upon the margin of our grave. and let a tyrant lean hard upon our fortune, and dwell upon our wrong; let the storm arise, and the keels toss till the cordage crack, or that all our hopes bulge under us, and descend into the hollowness of sad misfortunes." * Sermon at the Opening of Parliament. EUGENE GUINOT, whom we have spoken of before in our Chronicle, as the witty correspondent of the French journal of New York, is lighting up his summer journalism with rich stores of anecdote. He reports that Paris is full, to running-over, of English and Americans; and that unless the Londoners furnish them with a supply of the viands which were laid in store for the great Fair, there will be danger of a scarcity in the French metropolis. He indulges in most patriotic regrets over the lack of Parisian stars upon the stage ;— which fact, perhaps, will account for Mr. GREELEY'S cool notice of the French opera. The races have just now been drawing the attention of the sporting world of Paris; and GUINOT, in his notice of the attendant festivities, takes occasion to spice his record with an old story of a famous English sporting character. Lord M, it appears, was the owner of a famous horse yclept Tiberius. He had won laurels for himself, and money for his owner, so that Tiberius was, as it were the lion of the course. But on one unfortunate occasion, poor Tiberius being crowded by an awkward jockey, fell and dislocated his shoulder. The best surgical advice was pro cured, but in vain. Poor Tiberius was killed-to the great grief of owners and backers, and to the great content of all who held wagers against his success. Lord M., though minus some £5000 by the mishap, gave a great fête at the close of the races. His meats were specially admired :-above all a choice dish of game, served up with all the spicy disguises of French cookery. At the close, the host rose; "My lords," said he, "I propose a toast to the memory of Tiberius !" It was received with enthusiasm, and the guests rose at the instant, with glasses filled to the brim. Lord M. continued-" We drink to the fastest, the most elegant, the most renowned courser that has ever tramped the British turf !" Here the enthusiasm has increased to a clamor, and the glasses were drained. But the host had not done. He motioned to fill again. The guests were all attention. "You know, my lords," said he, "the great deeds of Tiberius; his renown belongs to history; but it is for us to honor his mortal remains. I have wished to give him a tomb worthy of his reputation; and for this reason, my lords, I have had him this day served up for your the waters, or to die easily in the quiet of repast! Yes, my lords, you have eaten Tiberius, and your noble stomachs have made for him a tomb that is worthy of his fame!" GUINOT says the noble diners-out bore it kindly;-which, however, we may set down as a Gallic perversion of English delicacy. the country. Baden, Ems, and Homburg are, however, exceptions to this rule; and if the papers are to be credited, these are even now crowded by English and French visitors. As a pleasant little story of French craft, we shall take the trouble to translate here a late episode from the Paris chronicles of the day. It is headed “ An Italian Count.” 66 M. P, rich, and retired from business, had a pretty hotel not far out of the city, which he inhabited, with his wife and daughter. Finding they had more room than they could well employ, they advertised a snug pavilion at the end of the garden to rent. Three days after, a young man of foreign aspect, calling himself Leonard, examined one of the apartments, and attended only by a single servant, took possession. He was a quiet person, and could be seen every day from the hotel writing at his window. The lady-wife and daughter of M. Pwere naturally excessively curious. There seemed no means, however, of gratifying their curiosity, and they watched their mysterious lodger in wonder and torment. The same piquant journalist gives a summing up, in one of his later letters, of the qualities and attractions of the various watering-places of Europe. He particularly eulogizes the scenery and the redeeming qualities of the springs of the Pyrenees; more especially he commends that mountain ai to the poor ladies, whose nerves are worn ut with the shock of the winter's encounter. The nervous system-continues he, in true French style-is the great system of women. In old times, the world called a derangement of this complicated systemthe vapors; but the term has gone out of fashion, and all vaporing ladies are now said to be suffering with neuralgia, nor is there a woman in the world so much to be pitied, and so much to be dreaded, as such a sufferer. As for the sweet springs in the South, the road that leads to them, he says, was only a little while ago so dangerous, that a good share of the invalids break their necks on the way. Whoever has travelled over the by-roads upon the French mountains may well believe the story. Now, however, in-sible and worthy people, they ventured to valids arrive in safety, and make up such a mournful and solemn company, as to give an autumnal cast to the gayest foliage of summer. Lodgings, says the journalist, are rare, and the hotel-keepers are so demure and sleepy, that they make no effort to extend their accommodations. Indeed, there are chances that the visitor will sleep the first night in his own carriage-with a promise of a vacant bed next day. The curious traveller once possessed of the bed inquires after his predecessor. "His name is D-, monsieur." After some days, however, the quick eyes of the daughter caught sight of a letter which the stranger had dropped in his walk through the garden. This was a prize not to be overlooked, and though excessively sen open and read the letter. They learned from it that their lodger was a young Italian of rank, just escaped from political martyr. dom, and now negotiating with powerful friends, to secure the release of his aged father Both mother and daughter were in raptures; they returned the letter with an unsuspecting air,-when, to their increasing rapture, the fair Leonard voluntarily made them his confidants-"not presuming to conceal from their generosity a secret which fate had thrown in their way." Henceforth Leonard was a guest at his host's table, and a quiet, unassuming, honest lover of his host's daughter. He met casually at his host's table with a rich banker, an old friend of M. P——, and in virtue of that friendship, admitted him, too, to a knowledge of his secret. Never was sympathy more cordial, or secresy better preserved. At length, on a bright day, Leonard came | it kept on the stage? Admit that it is not running to his friend to announce the release lascivious; who will pretend that it is essenof his father. The family were in ecstasies. tially graceful? I was glad to see that the most extravagant distortions were not speHe must come to the pavilion at the foot of cially popular with the audience — that the garden, and share apartments with his nearly all the applause bestowed upon those son. And the marriage so long deferred ballet feats which seemed devised only to must signalize his return. Nothing could favor a liberal display of the person, came from the little knot of hired claquers' in be more reasonable. the centre of the pit. If there were many who loved to witness, there were few so shameless as to applaud. Leonard went, under the advice of the banker, to buy marriage presents. He purchased largely, and in company with such a friend,-with undisputed credit. Two days after the senior count was to arrive; Leonard was to meet him in the city; he even took back the diamond necklace which he had purchased two days before, to exchange for one still more magnifi. cent; he borrowed twenty louis from the proud father-in-law, to meet his parent's immediate necessities, and drove out of the court-yard. The night came on with no Leonard-no count. The beau Italian had gone with a diamond necklace, with twenty louis in gold, with the heart of the daughter; and had left in place of them an old portmanteau, a broken file of the Presse, and a sentimental verse or two upon the window pane. In contrast with this French piquancy of dressing we shall now entertain the reader with Mr. Greeley's plain, matter-of-fact notions about the ballet at the French Opera. The singing does not appear to have engaged that staid gentleman's attention one half as much as the dancing girls. "I am, though no practitioner, a lover of the dance. Restricted to proper hours and fit associates, I wish it were far more general than it is. Health, grace, muscular energy, even beauty, might be promoted by it. Why the dancing of the theatre should be rendered disgusting I cannot yet comprehend. The poetry of motion,' of harmonious evolutions, and the graceful movement of twinkling feet,' I think I appreciate. All these are natural expressions of innocent gayety and youthful elasticity of spirits, whereof this world sees far too little. I wish there were more of them. "But what grace, what sense, what witchery, there can be, for instance, in a young girl's standing on one great toe and raising the other foot to the altitude of her head, I cannot imagine. As an exhibition of muscular power, it is disagreeable to me, because I know that the capacity for it was acquired by severe and protracted efforts, and at the cost of much suffering. Why is If the Opera is ever to become an element of social life and enjoyment in New York, I do trust that it may be such a one as thoughtful men may take their daughters to witness without apprehension or remorse. I do not know whether the Opera we now have is or is not such a one: I know this is not. Its entire, palpable, urgent tendency is earthly, sensual, devilish.' It is amusing, moreover, to read the comments of such a thorough utilitarian upon some of the sights of Paris. "The first object of interest I saw in Paris was the Column of Napoleon in the Place Vendome, as I rattled by it in the gray dawn of the morning of my arrival. formed of cannon taken by the Great Cap: This gigantic column, as is well known, was tain in the several victories which irradiated his earlier career, and was constructed while he was emperor of France and virtually of the Continent. His statue crowns the pyramid; it was pulled down while the allied armies occupied Paris, and a resolute attempt was made to prostrate the column also, but it was too firmly rooted. statue was not replaced till after the revolution of 1830. The Place Vendome is small, surrounded by high houses, and the stately column seems dwarfed by them. But for its historic interest, and especially that of the material employed in its construction, I should not regard it very highly. The "Far better placed, as well as more majestic and every way interesting, is the Obelisk of Luxor, which for thousands of years had overshadowed the banks of the Nile until presented to France by the late Pacha of Egypt, and transported thence to the Place de la Concorde, near the Garden of the Tuileries. I have seen nothing in Europe which impressed me like this magnificent shaft, covered as it is with mysterious inscriptions which have braved the winds and rains of four thousand years, yet seems as fresh and clear as though chiselled but yesterday. The removal of this bulk of many thousand tons from Egypt to Paris entire is one of the most marvellous achievements of human genius, and Paris has for me no single attraction to match the Obelisk of Luxor. |