* * * * *

[FROM DICKENS’S HOUSEHOLD WORDS.]

CLASS OPINIONS.

A FABLE.

A lamb strayed for the first time into the woods, and excited much discussion among the other animals.  In a mixed company, one day, when he became the subject of a friendly gossip, the goat praised him.

“Pooh!” said the lion, “this is too absurd.  The beast is a pretty beast enough, but did you hear him roar?  I heard him roar, and, by the manes of my fathers, when he roars he does nothing but cry ba-a-a!” And the lion bleated his best in mockery, but bleated far from well.

“Nay,” said the deer, “I do not think so badly of his voice.  I liked him well enough until I saw him leap.  He kicks with his hind legs in running and, with all his skipping, gets over very little ground.”

“It is a bad beast altogether,” said the tiger.  “He cannot roar, he cannot run, he can do nothing—­and what wonder?  I killed a man yesterday, and, in politeness to the new comer, offered him a bit; upon which he had the impudence to look disgusted, and say, ’No, sir, I eat nothing but grass.’”

So the beasts criticized the lamb, each in his own way; and yet it was a good lamb, nevertheless.

* * * * *

AUTHORS AND BOOKS.

* * * * *

E.P.  WHIPPLE was the Fourth of July orator of the city of Boston.  The Morning Post says, “his ability is so agile, elegant, and hilarious, that his readers generally do not discern the profundity and comprehensiveness of his nature or the progressive power of thought manifested in his writings.  We await impatiently the publication of his late oration.  It will be an apt opportunity, by the way, to compare Mr. E. Everett with him, each having just spoken on a similar national occasion.  His level, ‘fairspoken, immaculate regularity’ will contrast widely with the bold, vital vigor and originality of Mr. W. No man of constitutional timidity, feeble will, and shallow thought can ever have a real right to the title of orator.  Men of minds cultivated overmuch, and elaborately trained, are apt to lack central spiritual vitality, as some fruits grown to great size by art of the gardener fail of their native flavor, become insipid, and even hollow at the center.”

* * * * *

THE “HISTORY OF RELIGION,” by the celebrated John Evelyn, author of “Sylva,” &c., now first published from the original MS. in the Library at Wotton, with notes by the Rev. R.M.  Evanson, is among the books announced by Colburn, for the first of July.  The journals, in anticipation, express some curiosity upon the subject, whether it be pedantic, orthodox, and trimming, like the author, or whether it contain any of the Chubb and Toland spirit.  Two new and important works, ethically related to this, have just been issued; the one in France, called Qu’est-ce que la Religion, d’apres la Nouvelle Philosophie Allemande, wherein Feuerbach’s daring evolutions of Hegel’s principles are translated for the benefit of those who cannot read German; the other, called The Progress of Intellect, showing the various developments of religious ideas through history.