the proposition, that Humility is the true mother of Independence; and that Pride, which is so often supposed to stand to her in that relation, is in reality the step-mother by whom is wrought the very destruction and ruin of Independence.  False humilities are ordered into court, and summarily convicted by this single-eyed judge, whose cross-examination of these ‘sham respectabilities’ elicits many a suggestive practical truth.  There is more of philosophy and prudence than of romance in the excursus on Choice in Marriage; but the philosophy is shrewd and instructive, uttering many a homely hint of value in its way:  as where we are reminded that if marrying for money is to be justified only in the case of those unhappy persons who are fit for nothing better, it does not follow that marrying without money is to be justified in others; and again, that the negotiations and transactions connected with marriage-settlements are eminently useful, as searching character and testing affection, before an irrevocable step be taken; and again, that when two very young persons are joined together in matrimony, it is as if one sweet-pea should be put as a prop to another.  The essay on Wisdom is elevated and thoughtful, like most of the essayist’s papers, but somewhat too heavy for miscellaneous readers.  With his wonted clearness he distinguishes Wisdom from understanding, talents, capacity, ability, sagacity, sense, &c. and defines it as that exercise of the reason into which the heart enters—­a structure of the understanding rising out of the moral and spiritual nature.  Then follows a section on Children, which explodes not a few educational fallacies, and propounds certain articles of faith and practice wholesome for these times, though it will probably wear a prim and quakerish aspect to the admirers of Jean Paul’s famous tractate[10] on the same theme.  The concluding paper in this series, entitled The Life Poetic, is the liveliest, if not the most valuable of the six:  it has, however, been charged, with considerable show of justice, with a tendency to strip genius of all that is individual and spontaneous, or to accredit it only ’when it moves abroad sedately, clad in the uniform of a peculiar college.’  Mr Taylor’s ‘solicitous and premeditated formalism’ of poetical doctrine is, it must be confessed, a little too strait-laced.  The true poet is born, not made.  Still, in their place, our author’s dogmas have their use, and might, if duly marked and inwardly digested, annually deter many aspirants who are not poets from proving so incontestably to the careless public that negative fact.