from amongst sixteen competitors to execute the statue of George III. for the city of London. A few years later, he produced the exquisite monument of the Sleeping Children now in Lichfield Cathedral,—a work of great tenderness and beauty; and thenceforward his career was one of increasing honour, fame, and prosperity. His patience, industry, and steady perseverance were the means by which he achieved his greatness. Nature endowed him with genius, and his sound sense enabled him to employ the precious gift as a blessing. He was prudent and shrewd, like the men amongst whom he was born; the pocket-book which accompanied him on his Italian tour contained mingled notes on art, records of daily expenses, and the current prices of marble. His tastes were simple, and he made his finest subjects great by the mere force of simplicity. His statue of Watt, in Handsworth church, seems to us the very consummation of art; yet it is perfectly artless and simple. His generosity to brother artists in need was splendid, but quiet and unostentatious. He left the principal part of his fortune to the Royal Academy for the promotion of British art.-From Smiles' 'Self-Help.'

IZAAK WALTON AND RICHARD HOOKER.

IZAAK WALTON was born in the town of Stafford, in 1593, but it is not exactly known where he was educated and reared. He became at last a linen-draper in the City of London. First, he rented a shop in the "Royal Burse in Cornhill," only seven feet and a half long and five feet wide; secondly, a shop, or rather the half of a shop, in Fleet Street. Izaak, for thus he always spelt his Christian name, seems to have been very successful in life. He saved money, and ceased trading in 1643—that is, about six years before Charles I. was beheaded. Izaak's delight was to escape from the close, pent-up streets of London,

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and to ramble down into "pleasant Hertfordshire” and elsewhere, and, as he said, "go a-fishing." Rivers, streams, meadows, birds' songs, especially the lark's, the cool shade of trees in summer-time, and the rich, calm beauty of sunset-of all these honest Izaak never tired. He loved nature, and the God who made nature. His quaint and simple book, the Complete Angler,' is well known. Most bookstalls and bookshelves contain copies of it; and he who buys and reads it in the close, hot, noisy city, might almost fancy himself miles away in the country in company with Izaak, when, to use his own expressive words, "we sit on cowslip banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams which we now see glide so quietly by us." But Izaak thought so much of going fishing, that at times he forgot the pain, or rather torture to which he put living things, to gratify his pleasure. He teaches the angler how to put a frog on the hook, and adds, "and, in so doing, use him as though you loved him; that is, harm him as little as you may possible, that he may live the longer." Again, he recommends a perch as a bait for catching pike, because it is "the longest lived fish on a hook."

We love Izaak Walton, however, for his sweet temper and his loving friendship with such good and great men as Dr. Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, the poet, and Bishop Sanderson. With these men Izaak perhaps became acquainted through his wife, who was a sister of Dr. Ken, the author of our well-known and very expressive Morning and Evening Hymns, and at one time the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Perhaps one of the simplest and most thoughtful books which can be read aloud at the fireside is Izaak Walton's 'Lives.' Among the lives contained in this book is that of Dr. Richard Hooker. Hooker was no doubt one of the most learned, saint-like, humble men of the English Church. He lived on earth with his heart and thoughts in heaven. His learning was great, and as a monument thereof we have his 'Ecclesiastical Polity,' which stands on the shelves in many

libraries. This book is the salt which helps to keep true learning alive among those who care for and give their minds to the study of that greatest of all studies, namely Divinity; or rather, we may liken it to a lamp always burning and casting before us rays of light.

Izaak Walton speaks thus of Richard Hooker, his friend : "Mr. Hooker had not been twelve months there, that is at Borne, or Bishop's Borne, in Kent, three miles from Canterbury, but his books which he had written and the innocency and sanctity of his life became so remarkable that many turned out of the road, and others, scholars especially, went purposely to see the man. What went they out to see? An obscure, harmless man; a man in poor clothes, his loins usually girt in a coarse gown or canonical coat; of a mean stature and stooping, and yet more lowly in the thoughts of his soul; his body worn out, not with age, but study and holy mortifications; his face full of heat-pimples, begot by his inactivity and sedentary life."

Again Izaak Walton says of Richard Hooker—" God and nature blessed him with so blessed a bashfulness, that, as in his younger days his pupils might easily look him out of countenance, so neither then nor in his age did he ever willingly look any man in the face, and was of so mild and humble a nature that his poor parish-clerk and he did never talk but with both their hats on or both off at the same time; and to this may be added, that, though he was not purblind, yet he was short or weak sighted, and where he fixed his eyes at the beginning of his sermon, there they continued till it was ended."

Hooker was born at Heavitree, near, or within the precincts of, the city of Exeter. He was thus a native of Devonshire-the county which has given the world the good Bishop Jewel, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and many other celebrated men. He died at Bishop's Borne in A.D. 1600, and was buried in the church of that parish. The reader may turn for a full account of Hooker to Izaak Walton's 'Lives.' There are, however, two points

which may here be noticed. The first is the mistake which Hooker made when a Mrs. Churchman, with whom he lodged at times, proposed to him to marry, and he asked her to choose a wife for him. “Like a true Nathanael, fearing no guile, because he meant none, he gave her such a power as Eleazar was trusted with when he was sent to choose a wife for Isaac." The wife Mrs. Churchman provided for him was her own daughter Joan, “who brought him neither beauty nor portion." This, however, Hooker cared little for. But her temper was bad, and poor Hooker's life was sadly disturbed by it; like all men whose mind was given to deep study, he required quietness, and ought to have had a gentle wife and a quiet home; however, he learnt patience, so that he got good out of evil.

The second point is the visit which Hooker paid to Bishop Jewel at Salisbury, when he was travelling from Oxford to Exeter to see his mother, who in character seems to have been like St. Augustine's good mother Monica. It should be mentioned that Jewel had been Hooker's patron, and was the means of giving him his education at Oxford. On the present occasion he had allowed Hooker to depart without giving him money, and recollecting this fact, sent to bring him back. Jewel said—“Richard, I sent for you back to lend you a horse which hath carried me many a mile, and, I thank God, with much ease;' and presently delivered into his hand a walking-staff, with which he professed he had travelled through many parts of Germany; and he said, Richard, I do not give, but lend you my horse; be sure you be honest and bring my horse back to me at your return this way to Oxford. And I do now give you ten groats to bear your charges to Exeter; and here is ten groats more which I charge you to deliver to your mother, and tell her I send her a bishop's benediction with it, and beg the continuance of her prayers for me; and if you bring my horse back to me, I will give you ten groats more to carry you on foot to the college; and so God bless you, good Richard!""

These promises were duly kept by both; but Hooker soon heard at Oxford that his friend Jewel had left this world for a better.-From Pleasant Hours.'

THE DEATH OF NELSON.

NELSON having despatched his business at Portsmouth, endeavoured to elude the populace by taking a by-way to the beach; but a crowd collected in his train, pressing forward, to obtain a sight of his face; many were in tears, and many knelt down before him, and blessed him as he passed. England has had many heroes, but never one who so entirely possessed the love of his fellow-countrymen as Nelson. All men knew that his heart was as humane as it was fearless; that there was not in his nature the slightest alloy of selfishness or cupidity; but that, with perfect and entire devotion, he served his country with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength; and, therefore, they loved him as truly and as fervently as he loved England. They pressed upon the parapet to gaze after him when his barge pushed off, and he was returning their cheers by waving his hat. The sentinels, who endeavoured to prevent them from trespassing upon this ground, were wedged among the crowd; and an officer who, not very prudently upon such an occasion, ordered them to drive the people down with their bayonets, was compelled speedily to retreat; for the people would not be debarred from gazing, till the last moment, upon the hero-the darling hero of England.

It had been part of Nelson's prayer, that the British fleet might be distinguished by humanity in the victory which he expected. Setting an example himself, he twice gave orders to cease firing on the 'Redoubtable,' supposing that she had struck, because her guns were silent; for, as she carried no flag, there was no means of instantly