I have no cause to say here with Sheik Mohammed Ali Hazin that “taste for poetical and elegant composition has turned the reins of my ink-dropping pen away from the road which lay before it:” For this passage of learned Ben lay directly in the way; and no where, Reader, couldst thou find the theory of the Alchemists more ably epitomized. “Father,” said the boy Daniel one day, after listening to a conversation upon this subject, “I should like to learn to make gold.” “And what wouldst thou do, Daniel, if thou couldst make it?” was the reply. “Why I would build a great house, and fill it with books; and have as much money as the King, and be as great a man as the Squire.” “Mayhap, Daniel, in that case thou wouldst care for books as little as the Squire, and have as little time for them as the King. Learning is better than house or land. As for money, enough is enough; no man can enjoy more; and the less he can be contented with the wiser and better he is likely to be. What, Daniel, does our good poet tell us in the great verse-book? Nature's with little pleased; enough's a feast: A sober life but a small charge requires: But man, the author of his own unrest, The more he hath, the more he still desires. No, boy, thou canst never be as rich as the King, nor as great as the Squire; but thou mayest be a Philosopher, and that is being as happy as either.” “A great deal happier,” said Guy. “The Squire is as far from being the happiest man in the neighbourhood, as he is from being the wisest or the best. And the King, God bless him! has care enough upon his head to bring on early grey hairs. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” “But what does a Philosopher do?” rejoined the boy. “The Squire hunts and shoots and smokes, and drinks punch and goes to Justice-Meetings. And the King goes to fight for us against the French, and governs the Parliament, and makes laws. But I cannot tell what a Philosopher's business is. Do they do any thing else besides making Almanacks and gold?” “Yes,” said William, “they read the stars.” “And what do they read there?” “What neither thou nor I can understand, Daniel,” replied the father, “however nearly it may concern us!” CHAPTER XXI. P. I. A DOUBT CONCERNING THE USES OF PHILOSOPHY. _El comienzo de salud es el saber, distinguir y conocer qual es virtud._ PROVERBIOS DEL MARQUES DE SANTILLANA. That grave reply produced a short pause. It was broken by the boy, who said returning to the subject, “I have been thinking, Father, that it is not a good thing to be a Philosopher.” “And what, my Son, has led thee to that thought?” “What I have read at the end of the Dictionary, Father. There was one Philosopher that was pounded in a mortar.” “That Daniel,” said the Father, “could neither have been the Philosopher's fault nor his choice.”