"Where shall we find a safe retreat for envied greatness, from the miry breath or slander's feverish tongue; dark in the bosom of the ocean's fathomless abyss, on the cloud-cleaving Atlas, or at the extremity of east or west. High on the gilded dome, or palace pinnacle, should merit's fairest hard-earned honours shine, once seated there, the sickly eye of speckled Jealousy, or Envy's snaky tribe, with iron nerve, and cold in blood, well scan the mark, and the envenomed javelin cast, with secret but unerring aim, and what is to screen him from the foul attack? The shield of Worth intrinsic, bound about with truth, and conscious innocence, and where that lives, all other covering only tends to hide its blushing beauties from the rising sun, and dim the face of day. "So the firm oak's deep roots, eccentric, winding through the heaving earth, fast bound and chasmed deep, with many a widening gap, by blazing Sol's mid ray, at summer's sultry noon, opposes strength to strength; or round the impervious rocks, in weighty balance to its broad branch, and highly-lifted head, up to the mountain's summit, shrinks not from the prospect of the blackening storm, and while it sends its sweeping arms around over the circling numerous acres, shadowing under its expanded greatness, fears not the threatening blast, nor for protection looks to man. Too great to need a screen; it were children's play to throw a mantle over its full broad majesty, to try to save its foliage luxuriant from the rude element. The attempt would be as weedy muslin's cobweb insipidity; its flimsy partial covering would only hide its full matured richness; and the first breeze of whirlwind's opening rising tempest, tear from the disdainful surface to streaming raggedness the feeble effort, and open to the eye the golden fruit, freshening by the tempest, and glittering in the storm." We know very little of human nature, if Mr. Ward, in spite of his disclaiming any wish to be considered as an author, does not think all this very fine. By way of simply explaining his allegory, it is particularly useful;--of Mr. Ward's view of the necessity of such explanation we may assure ourselves by his very apposite allusion to Milton, Walter Scott, Homer, and Burn (as he calls him). This paragraph we must quote:--