The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1881-03-30
For THE RECORD.
THE OLD SQUARE ALMANAC.

THE OLD SQUARE ALMANAC.
1t is great comfort that we are able to dc
many things successfully, even when we car
give no rational account of the operation. To
breathe, for example, or sleep, or let lfe's
warm currents course through our veins
William Harvey was the man who first de.
naonstrdted the circulation of the blood, and
be was not born into this worlu of ours until
April |, 1878. Yet how many scores of yigor-
GUS babies had grown into stout men, and
reached green old age, dealing heavy blows
at adversaries' heads, if they were soldiers, or
carolling sweet lays, if they were poets born ;
and all the while profoundly ignorant, if not
unthoughtfu of how the red drops worked
their way, from heart to brain, tongue and
finger ends. They were, meanwhile, as stall
wart or as sentimental as though they were in
the secret which Harvey lad not yet detected,
aud understood all about the red corpuscles,
and the millions upon MILLIONS that go to
make an incli--the discovery of which waited
two centuries later than Harvey's day for the
microscope to reveal. After all, the curious
and the marvellous findings of genius in sue
cessive ages would be of small account but for
mans existing miseries and the many ills to
which flesh is beir. They are valuable, only
as they are remedial. q simple child that
lightly draws its breath what need has it
to know how it breatbes? But for disease
no feeling of the pulse, no auscultation, no
looking at the tongue. To avert sickness,
however, or arrest its progress, what ines
Unable blessing is the knowle ledge daily aug
mented through mans patient investigation
of mans earthly tabernacle, this body, fear
fully and wonderfully made.
In such view, the proper study of man
kind is man." And so far as his study. mer-
cifully applied, amelorates the condition of
the race, he is fellow-worker with the Re-
deemer in repairing the ravages of sin. He
healed the sick and fed the hungry, and so
made needy suffering men more accessible to
the F,ippaal saea a the same spirit of good
will to men, are helps and agencies Of Christi
anity, which it cannot afford to dispense with,
and which have their noblest use only when
thus employed
April g. 1903, George Herbert was born, one
of England's earlier Church poets, who relin-
pushed the social and political advantages of
his birth, to devote himself to the self denying
duties of the ministry and the humble service
of small, rural parish at Bemerton. The
tourist to Stonehenge and Salisbury will turn
aside for few miles, to visit the pretty homo
ofthe poet-pastor, bis Reotory on the sparkling
Itchen, the plain little church in which he fed
his rustic flock, and the stately temple, few
years ago erected TO his memory by the joint
effort of ,English and American admirers.
Herbert's Country Parson is the text book,
as its author was model, of the Parish Priest.
His numerous poems are in The Temple
most of them too full Of the quaint phrases
and fanciful conceits of his age TO be much
read now but his Sunday, and Virtue, aud
Easter, and few others, are favorites with
many readers who may not be aware Of their
authorship. ~
The same day, 1888, gave our Washington
Irving to America and to the world. He was
the first of our native authors to achieve popu-
larity in England, and convince our British
cousins that Americans could write books that
were worth the reading; and probably his
foreign reputation also secured him earlier
honours in the land of his birth. But the
time came when VIC needed no suggestions
from abroad to make US love aud honor the
genial master of Sunnyside; whose latest pro-
auctions, Mahomet, and The Life Of Wash
ington showed the same vigorous intellect
engaged on historical Subjects as had in his
youth bubblcd up in Satdn,aguadi and sparkled
in the sSkstch Book. His q merriest gesie !"
was the comic history of New York, entitled
Knickefbocker's, which made all America laugh
at its broad humour and palpable hits, and so
imposed upon the European mind, profoundly
ignorant of our Western world, that Diedrich
Knickerbocker has been seriously quoted by
grave writers as an historical authority
EsI t at4tt --~- 4 hs
April A, 1774, died Oliver Goldsmith, VIII ose
name we are disposed to mention in close con-
nection with that of Irving, for other reasons
than their chance occurrence in The same COL
umn of tho Almanac. Irving wrote an excel
lent Life of Goldsmith, and long before, he
must have read him, and taken to him, as
congenial spirit. Irving had more Of worldly
wisdom aud the capacity for self, preservation
than Poor Colby" But there was much
of similarity n the genial humour that was
the chief characteristics of both, and in the
charming ease and gracefuluess Of their his
toricaI narration. But the practical mishaps
and blunders of Goldsmith's fife were as i'm
possible to Irving as the Embassy to Spain
would have been for the witty self-starved
Irishman. We cannot imagine our foreign
minister flddling his way through France, or
distrained. for rent In his London garnet but
neither, we fear, could be have sung "Sweet
Auburn ;, in the exquisite verse of G oldsmith's
Deserted Viltags Bluff. gruff old Dr. john
sons tender and helpful love for Oliver was
honorable to both. He paid his rent, kept
him out of the debtors prison, scolded him
for his thoughtless extravagance and i'll judged
tfnevolence, aud found him both Publisher
and public, while as yet johnson was q mag
nate, and Goldsmith unknown. And when he
died, Buckle wept Reynolds laid his work
aside and johnson said, with emotion, Let
not his failngs be remembered he was a
very great man. x.
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