"TO HAVE TO DO A THING."-The word have in this and similar constructions expresses obligation or necessity; a sense which accedes to the word by a process precisely identical, in its first step, with the process by which, in Greek and Latin, the familiar sense of ability has been evolved from the radical sense of the corresponding words-exy and habere.

The proper meaning of the word have in each of these languages, is that of possession. But according to the popular, and herein true apprehension, possession implies the ability to do-he who has is able. Indeed, this very word able is but a slightly obscured form of the Latin word habilis, which, like its primitive habere, to have, would seem, of its own radical force, to embrace the idea of possession, as ever, in the nature of things, underlying the idea of ability. Thus far the Greek and Latin had developed the radical idea; but the common sense, or the common conscience of our Saxon fathers carried the process for our English word, one step further. Not onlyaccording to this wider induction, this profounder moral sense of the fitness of things-not only he who has, is able; but he who is able, ought to do. The perception of the ability rises into the higher feeling of moral incumbency, or even of physical necessity. So that to say, "I have to do," is but another mode of expressing the necessity which is laid on me-"I must do."

W. G. Ws.

MENTAL INTROSPECTION.-A singular illustration of the introspective power of the mind, its faculty to project itself from without inward upon itself, no less than from within outward upon external objects, is seen in the fact that one can write upon his own brow, or upon a tablet laid against it, with equal facility in either direction, to the right, or to the left.

When an ordinary manuscript is held against the light and read from the opposite side of the paper, the writing presents itself with both the characters and the direction of the writing reversed; pretty much as the old Hebrews were in the habit of writing, and the Greeks, too, for that matter, before they became civilized. In an attempt at a similar backward style of chirography, in English, there are probably very few persons, however ready with the pen, who would succeed in shaping legible characters, even were the paper spread before their eyes, and the attempt made with all painstaking. But any one can write on his brow just as readily backward as forward; not that he can do either very easily or very well, having no use of his eyes; but that either direction seems perfectly natural to him, accordingly as his mind contemplates the surface, whether as spread before"the mind's eye " from within, in which case one writes from left to right on his brow, making the characters backward on the paper; or as spread before it from without, in which case the direction of the writing is from right to left, and the characters on the paper assume their ordinary form. M. E. S.

AN EPIGRAM.

"Begot by butchers, but by bishops bred;

How high his honor holds his haughty head!"

Can any of your correspondents inform me respecting

the authorship of this epigram, which is noted as the happiest specimen of alliteration in the English language; and whether, as I suspect, it was originally written against Cardinal Wolsey, or Bishop Warburton, to either of which two great men it would literally apply?

G. G.

PAINTERS' ANACHRONISMS.-A painter should be well read in history, especially as to customs and manners in different ages. The want of this knowledge has led to some comical blunders in "the divine art." And contributor to the Notes and Queries says: "A collection of painters' anachronisms might be made both interesting and amusing, if they have not as yet been gathered together: I believe no D'Israeli has as yet appeared to chronicle the Curiosities of Art.'

"One of the most amusing I have stumbled on is mentioned in those ponderous volumes, by Dibdin, wherein he narrates his foreign adventures in 1820, the Picturesque Tour.'

"Noticing the cheap chap-books then so popular in that part of France, which had their center in Caen, he gives an illustration from one of them, conveying one of these artists' conception of the Departure of the Prodigal Son,' who 'is about to mount his horse and leave his father's house, in the cloak and cock'd hat of a French officer !

"In architectural details the painter is more startling still, for if there has never been a disposition to act, there has never been wanting inclination to paint in the living present.'

"Gothic cathedrals and convents form backgrounds to Scripture subjects, and, indeed, the conjectural architecture of Palestine alone would form no small division of the proposed collection.

"Then, again, the faces and figures of the models are generally traceable to the land of the painter; there never was a race so innocent of ethnological distinctions as these artists. Albert Durer's Prodigal with the Swine,' for instance, a dissipated German Herr, with a lank face, drooping mustache, and hair enough to put to shame the full-bottomed wigs of a later century.

"A Dutch rendering of Christ and the Crown of Thorns,' has for its scene a pot-house, and the Roman soldiers are all Dutch boors, and the room and furniture are all conformed to the style known among them.

"The last instance of this carelessness of the flight of time, was in the article of costume, in a painting of a Scripture subject. In the foreground of this subject a figure was represented in the slashed breeches of the fif teenth century!"

HOW OUR RELATIONS TALKED.-The following jeu d'esprit places in a clear light the odiousness of a phase in human nature by no means uncommon. For this reason we give it a place among our gatherings:

When God removed Papa to heaven,
And Ma was left to strive for seven,
With scarce enough for burial fees-
So lingering was poor Pa's disease-
Though full of grief we'd no despair,
Relations spoke so kind and fair.

Our Grandpa said that he, for one,
Would think, and see what could be done;
Our Uncle William and our Aunt
Hoped we should never come to want;
But Mother's Brothers talked the best,
A great deal kinder than the rest;

They said that home they 'd take us all,
Only their rooms were few and small.
We'd promises from Uncle Page,
To push us forward when of age.

They then went home-but stop, I miss,
They gave us every one a kiss,

And said, "Be good, and mind Mamma,
And we will be to you-Papa!"

So much engaged were they at home,
For many weeks they could not come;
Until they heard Mamma had found
A writing for five hundred pound,
Which some insurance office paid.
So Ma commenced a genteel trade;

And then they came-it seemed so funny
To beg Mamma to lend them money!
But Ma said, "No! if you are poor,
A trifle will your life insure;

And then the office -our best friend-
Whenever your good life shall end,
Will comfort to your orphans send."

LUCID AND LURID.-In the hymn beginning,
"I would not live alway; I ask not to stay,"

there is a line which reads,

"The few lurid mornings that dawn on us here."

The word lurid was not written by the author of this hymn. He wrote it,

"The few lucid moments that dawn on us here."

Till trembling with excessive awe and love Each sceptered spirit sank before the throne, With a mute halleluiah.

But even then,

While the ecstatic song was at its hight,

Stole in an alien voice-a voice that seemed

To float, float upward from some world afar

A meek and childlike voice, faint, but how sweet, That blended with the spirit's rushing strain, Even as a fountain's music, with the roll

Of the reverberated thunder.

Loving smiles

Lit up the beauty of each angel's face

At that new utterance-smiles of joy that grew
More joyous yet, as ever and anon

Was heard the simple burden of the hymn,
"Praise God! Praise God!"

And when the seraph's song

Had reached its close, and o'er the golden lyre
Silence hung brooding-when the eternal courts
Rang with the echoes of his chant sublime,

Still through the abeyance, that wandering voice
Came floating upward from its world afar-
Still murmured sweet on the celestial air,
"Praise God! Praise God!"

From heaven, and pull at its inferior links,
Both goddesses and gods. But Me your King,
Supreme in wisdom, ye shall never draw

To Earth from Heaven, strive with Me as ye may.
But I, if willing to exert my power,

The earth itself, itself the sea, and you,
Will lift with ease together, and will wind
THE CHAIN around the spiry summit sharp
Of the Olympian, that all things upheaved
Shall hang in the mid Heav'n. So much am I
Alone superior both to Gods and Men."-Il. 19-30.

The allusions to this Homeric Chain in old writers are very numerous. An English writer makes a very fine collection of them. We excerpt a few. In Paradise Lost, Chaos observes, in his speech to Satan :

"Now lately Heaven and Earth, another World,
Hung o'er my realm, link'd in a Golden Chain
To that side Heav'n from whence your legions fell."
Book ii, l. 1004.

A little further on, in the same book, 1. 1050, Milton again alludes to it:

"And fast by, hanging in a Golden Chain This pendent world, in bigness as a Star

Of smallest magnitude, close by the Moon."

In his Theaetetus, Socrates argues that "motion is good both for soul and body, but rest, the contrary;" and in proving this, observes:

"Shall I add further, with respect to the stillness of the air, and calms, and things of that kind, that rest corrupts and destroys, but the contrary preserves. And besides this, I shall put the finishing stroke to my argu ment by compelling you to admit, that by The Golden Chain, Homer meant nothing else than the Sun; and intimated, that as long as the Universe and the Sun are moved, all things exist and are preserved, both among gods and among men; but if they were to stand still, as

it were bound, all things would be destroyed; and, as the saying is, turned upside down."

Proclus, "the Platonic successor," in his work on the Theology of Plato, thus expresses himself:

"Union is present with the world according to the bond of analogy; but much more from the One Soul and the One Intellect which it participates. For through these greater bonds and a more excellent union proceed into the Universe. And still beyond these unions, Divine friendship, and the supply of good, contain and connect the whole world. For the bond which proceeds from intellect and soul is strong, as Orpheus also says; but the Union of THE GOLDEN CHAIN; [that is, of the Deific Series,] is still greater, and the cause of greater good to all things."

In his Commentary on the Timæus of Plato occurs a noble passage:

"The first analogy, according to which Nature inserts harmony in her works, and according to which the Demiurgus adorns and arranges the universe, is one certain Life, and one Reason, proceeding through all things; according to which, sympathy is ingenerated in all mundane essences as oxisting in one animal, and governed by one Nature. . . . And this is the strong bond, as the theologian [Orpheus] says, which is extended through all things, and is connected by THE GOLDEN CHAIN. For Jupiter, after this, constitutes the Golden Chain, according to the admonitions of Night:

'But when your power around the whole has spread
A strong coercive bond, a Golden Chain
Suspend from æther.'

"... This Chain proceeds from the first through the middle, to the last, as extending and unfolding itself as far as to the last of things. And it recurs from the last to the first, as converting all things through harmony to the Intelligible Cause, from which the division of Nature and the separation and interval of bodies are produced. . . For through analogy, the Universe is completely rendered one. . . . It makes all things to be in all, and exhibits the same things in each other, according to all possible modes."

...

Sir Thos. Brown remarks:

"In a wise supputation, all things begin and end in the Almighty. There is a nearer way to heaven than Homer's Chain; an easy logic may conjoin a heaven and earth in one argument, and, with less than a sorites, resolve all things to God. For though we christen effects by their most sensible and nearest causes, yet is God the true and infallible cause of all; whose concourse, though it be general, yet doth it subdivide itself into the particular actions of every thing, and is that Spirit, by which each singular essence not only subsists, but performs its operation."-Rel. Med., Sec. xviii.

We have space only for one more item. That we select from Archbishop Leighton :

"Two links of the Chain, namely, Election and Salvation, are up in heaven in God's own hand; but this middle one-that is, Effectual Calling-is let down to earth, into the hearts of his children, and they laying hold on it have sure hold on the other two; for no power can sever them."

Additional selections on this subject we purpose furnishing in our next issue.

FORTY YEARS AGO.-Mr. Editor, I am unable to trace Longfellow; but I find no authority for referring it to the following poem to its origin. It has been ascribed to that paternity. It seems "Hoodish;" but I believe it is not Hood's. I send it for your Note and Query department, however, on account of its touching allusions to "Forty years ago." You will not wonder that I can appreciate them when I say you know it was "forty years ago" that I played upon the village green, though, indeed, I must admit there are some expressions in the poem that may not suit the tastes of all your readers: I've wander'd to the village, Tom, I 've sat beneath the tree, Upon the school-house play-ground, that shelter'd you and

me;

But none were left to greet me, Tom, and few were there to know

That played with us upon the green, some forty years ago.
The grass is just as green, Tom; barefooted boys at play,
Were sporting just as we did then, with sports just as gay;
But the master sleeps beneath the hill, which, coated o'er with
snow,

Afforded us a sliding place, now forty years ago.

The old school-house is altered now, the benches are replaced By new ones very like the same our penknives had defaced; But the same old bricks are in the wall, and the bell sways to and fro,

Its music just the same, dear Tom, 'twas forty years ago.

The boys were playing some old game, beneath that same old tree;

I have forgot the name just now-you 've played the same with me,

On that same spot-'twas played with knives, by throwing so and so:

The leader had a task to do there, forty years ago.

The river's running just as still; the willows on its side
Are larger than they were, Tom; the stream appears less wide;
But the grapevine swing is missing now, where once we played
the beau,

And swung our sweethearts-pretty girls-just forty years ago. The spring that bubbled near the hill, close by the spreading beech,

Is very low; 'twas once so high that we could almost reach;
To see how sadly I had changed since forty years ago.
And kneeling down to get a drink, dear Tom, I started so
Near by the spring, upon an elm, you know I cut your name,
Your sweetheart's just beneath it, Tom, and you did mine the

same;

but slow,

Just as that one whose name you cut died, forty years ago.
My lids have long been dry, Tom, but tears came in my eyes;
I thought of her I loved so well, those early broken ties!
I visited the old church-yard, and took some flowers to strew
Upon the graves of those we loved some forty years ago.
Some in the church-yard laid, Tom, some sleep beneath the

yew:

But none remain of our old class, excepting me and you; And when our time is come, Tom, and we are called to go, I hope they'll lay us where we played just forty years ago.

THE application in any form of cant phrases to the sacred rites of religion, always grates harshly upon our sensibilities. A single word in the following made us pause over it; but, on the whole, the moral of it is too good to be lost:

Some good people in our region think that sins are washed away, and we become the children of God by being immersed in water. A little cousin of mine heard one of these preachers exhorting the people to be baptized, that they might become "the lambs of God." The next day little Ada was playing with a couple of white kittens, when a new thought seemed to strike her. "O, you be kittens," said she; "now I am going to bapsouse you and make lambs of you." Suiting the action to the word, she plunged them both into a tub of water. On taking them out, she said: "Now you are not kittens any longer, but pretty lambs." The kittens were glad to escape away. Finding them after they had become dry, she cried out, "O you rogues, I bapsoused you and made lambs of you; but you are kittens still." Now, Mr. Editor, I fear that many who think they become the children of God by being immersed in water, when they get dry, will be found to be of the old nature. We need something more than water to change us. G. W. T.

Though the late Bishop Hedding was childless, no man that we ever knew loved children more tenderly, or was more fond of their company. Their guileless friendship and innocent prattle had powerful charms for him. He delighted to tell amusing anecdotes of them. Perhaps one or two of them for your SIDEBOARD, may not be unacceptable.

While attending the New York annual conference, some fifteen years since, he was quartered with a Methodist family, consisting of husband and wife, and two lovely little boys-the latter about four and six years of age. They were great friends of the Bishop, called him grandpa, and were ever ready to render him any little act of service. All their friendship was reciprocated. So "gentlemanly" a little couple the Bishop said he scarcely ever before saw. He was so pleased with them that, whenever he came in from conference, he would seek their company with a view to unbend his mind.

One evening at tea the hostess expressed much regret that she could not hear a particular preacher who was expected to conduct the services at her church that evening. She alternated with her servant in attending public worship during the session of the conference, and, unfortunately for her, it was the turn of the servant to go that evening. The Bishop said,

"Sister, let me plan for you. I am too much fatigued to attend myself, or to do any thing else that requires mental effort. I must rest, and will stay at home, and take care of the little boys. They will afford me just that sort of recreation which my exhausted energies now demand."

When the sister satisfied herself that the Bishop was quite in earnest, she very gladly accepted his proposition. After the family had all gone off to meeting, the little fellows approached the Bishop, and the elder one, laying his hand on his knee, said:

"Come, grandpa, won't you please to tell us a story?" The manner of the application was so respectful, and so supplicating, that the Bishop could not decline.

"Let me see," said the Bishop, "have you ever heard of the story of Joseph ?"

"No," was the instant response; "who was Joseph?" "That," returned the Bishop, "is just what I was going to tell you."

Accordingly he went on with the history of Joseph; when he soon found himself speaking to the most deeply-interested hearers that had ever stood before him. Their little faces responded to every sentiment evolved by the narrative. When Joseph's fortune brightened, their eyes would sparkle, and their whole expression would be that of the most perfect satisfaction. But when that fortune waned, they would exhibit the profoundest sympathy; their eyes filling with tears, their lips trembling, their cheeks turning pale. The Bishop said that he himself was never before so affected by the narrative. New reflections were suggested to his mind; so that it took him nearly an hour to tell the story, and to make the proper application of it to his dual congregation. When he had finished, they still stood looking him in the face, as if eager to hear more. At length the elder said:

"Is that all, grandpa?"

The revulsion was overpowering. The Bishop felt that there was, indeed, but a step between the sublime and the ridic ulous. The little fellow seemed quite satisfied that he had balanced accounts with the Bishop, while the latter was constrained to give himself up to uncontrollable laughter. It was some time after that we heard the Bishop tell this story, in a little domestic circle, and never but once before did we see him laugh so heartily. He said that several times during the night, after this interchange with his little friend, he awoke and thought of "Jack and Jill;" when he found himself so convulsed with laughter as literally to shake the whole bed. ZETA.

THE following comes from Illinois. The mention of a cornfield dotted with golden pumpkins brings back a gleam of youthful sunshine to the soul:

In the fall of 1851 we moved from the village to a farm. East of the house, on a slight elevation of land, was a field of corn, thickly interspersed with golden pumpkins. Our little two-year old boy was very fond of standing on the porch and looking at them. He went out one evening at dusk, and saw the full moon rising, and exclaimed,

"O ma, look! look! a big pumpkin is coming right up out of the corn." C. M. II.

Ir is due to say that our space will not admit all the items received for this department. From the mass we select those best adapted to its general design. Our thanks are due to our friends in all parts of the country for keeping up the supply. We receive your items as a favor-even when we can not give space to them. We have a large number filed for insertion.