ON READING. 103 



sing out of the sea in long, successive leaps ; up and down ihey went 

 racing through the water, and these Bonetas after them at a Ivilling rate. 

 It was like the grey-hound after the hare. But it was not only these 

 marine pursuers which demolished thousands of them. Tlie gulls came 

 down upon them like an avalanche, and swallowed them wholesale. 

 The poor little fish had no peace any where. In the water, they were 

 attacked by the big fish, and out of it, they fell a prey to the voracious 

 gulls. Similar scenes we behold every day in human life. 



The stormy Petrels (Procellaria, Lin.) (Mother Carey\'i Chickens, 

 vulgarly,) were extremely abundant nearly the whole voyage. It is a 

 small bird not as large as a robin, and occurs every where at sea. They 

 fly gracefully and approach within a few yards of the ship. When they 

 seek shelter on a vessel, then look out for a hurricane ! We caught a 

 number of them, by tying a small piece of fat to a cotton thread and 

 throwing it over board from the stern. Hundreds would come to de- 

 vour it, and in flying about it, in such numbers, every now and then, 

 one would get his wings fastened by the thread, and thus we would 

 haul him on board unhurt. After inspecting him and receiving on our 

 hands the contents of his stomach which he would eject, we would let 

 him fly again. They rise with some difficulty from the deck, and seem 

 to be awkward in every movement except when on the wing. 



ON READING. NO, IV. 



" 'Tis not a melancholy utinam of mine own, but the desires of better heads, 

 that tiiere were a general Synod ; not to unite the incompatible difference of re- 

 ligion, but for the benefit of learning ; to reduce it as it lay at first in a few and sol- 

 id authors, and to condemn to the fire those swarms and millions of rhapsodies be- 

 gotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgment of scholars, and to maintain 

 the trade and mystery of typographers." 



Sir Thomas Browne. — Religio Medici. 



If mere amusement, or the gratification of idle curiosity, were the 

 proper object in reading, then the superficial mode which we have been 

 condemning might be allowed ; and if the great end were to make a 

 show of knowledge, nothing could be better calculated to gain that end 

 than the indulgence in miscellaneous reading which we have been seek- 

 ing to correct. But the true end to be had in view, whatever be the 

 more immediate object, should be self-improvement. And whether this 

 improvement shall consist in the cultivation of taste, and purity of style; 

 in the acquisition of information; in mental discipline or moral eleva- 

 tion ; the mind must be actively employed, and careful attention must 

 be given to wliat is read. 



