The prayer which Homer puts into the mouth of Hector for his son Astyanax, at the parting with Andromache, most beautifully illustrates the nature of a father's love. "O Jupiter, and ye gods! grant that this my son may be like his father, a leader among the Trojans, brave in battle, and a brave king of Illion. And hereafter, may the people say of him as he comes from battle, he is far braver than his father, and may he bring back the bloody spoils, having slain his enemy, and please his mother's heart." A Brutus and a Titus Manlius, who would condemn their own sons to death for the satisfaction of public justice, may be found among fathers, but never among mothers. Agamemnon may consent to the sacrifice of Iphigenia, but Clytemnestra, although a woman of depravity, could not,--because she loved the daughter more than she loved Greece. Joy it is well known, may sometimes be so intense as to produce death. Listen to the three following cases of death from joy: they will illustrate the difference between the father's and mother's love. Pliny tells us, that Chilo the Spartan died upon hearing that his son had gained a prize at the Olympic games. Again--the three sons of Diagoras were crowned on the same day victors in the Olympic games, the one as a pugilist, the other as a wrestler, and the third, at the _pancration_, or game combined of wrestling and boxing; and Aulus Gellius tells us, that the father's joy was so great, that he expired in the arms of his sons in the presence of the assembled multitude, "ibi in stadio inspectante populo, in osculis atque in manibus filiorum animam efflavat." In both of these cases joy came from gratified ambition. Livy tells us of an aged mother, who, while she was plunged into the depths of distress from the news of her son's death in battle, died in his arms from the excess of joy, on his sudden, unexpected safe return; the mother loved her son, not for the lustre which he might shed on her name and family, but for himself, and well might she, for it is the lot of a mother to watch with unremitting care over her infant during the first years of its existence. She notices with a tender anxiety all its little movements, and administers to all its wants. She alone learns to "Explore the thought, explain the asking eye;" she alone learns to read all the emotions of its heart by gazing on the play of its features. To her the voice of laughter is as delightful and beautiful as the most ravishing music; and the tones and cries of sickness and distress, are as afflicting and melancholy, as the fall of stocks, revulsions of commerce, and the disasters of trade and business are to man.