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saunter along, without having some object to attain; and how listless and unprofitable a walk taken against the inclination, and merely for exercise, is, compared to the same exertion made in pursuit of an object on which we are intent. The difference is, simply, that in the former case the muscles are obliged to work without that full nervous impulse which nature has decreed to be essential to their healthy and energetic action; and that, in the latter, the nervous impulse is in full and harmonious operation. The great superiority of active sports, botanical and geological excursions, gardening and turning, as means of evercise, over mere monotonous movements, is referable to the same principle. Every kind of youthful play and mechanical operation interests and excites the mind, as well as occupies the body, and, by thus placing the muscles in the best position for wholesome and beneficial exertion, enables them to act without fatigue, for a length of time which, if occupied in mere walking for exercise, would utterly exhaust their powers.

The elastic spring, the bright eye, the cheerful glow of beings thus excited, form a perfect contrast to the spiritless and inanimate aspect of many of our boarding-school processions; and the results, in point of health and activity, are not less different. So influential, indeed, is the nervous stimulus, that examples have occurred of strong mental emotions having instantaneously given life and vigor to paralytic limbs. This has happened in cases of shipwrecks, fires, and sea-fights, and shows how indispensable it is to have the mind engaged and interested along with the muscles. Many a person who feels ready to drop from fatigue, after a merely mechanical walk, would have no difficulty in subsequently undergoing much continuous exertion in active play or in dancing; and it is absurd, therefore, to say that exercise is not beneficial, when, in reality, proper exercise has not been tried.

The amount of bodily exertion of which soldiers are capable is well known to be prodigiously increased by the mental stimulus of pursuit, of fighting, or of victory. In the retreat of the French from Moscow, for example, when no enemy was near, the soldiers became depressed in courage and enfeebled in body, and nearly sank to the earth through exhaustion and cold; but no sooner did the report of the Russian guns sound in their ears, or the gleam

of hostile bayonets flash in their eyes, than new life seemed to pervade them, and they wielded powerfully the arms which, a few moments before, they could scarcely drag along the ground. No sooner, however, was the enemy repulsed, and the nervous stimulus which animated their muscles withdrawn, than their feebleness returned. Dr. Sparrman, in like manner, after describing the fatigue and exhaustion which he and his party endured in their travels at the Cape, adds,-" yet, what even now appears to me a matter of wonder is, that as soon as we got a glimpse of the game, all this languor left us in an instant.' On the principle already mentioned this result is perfectly natural, and in strict harmony with what we observe in sportsmen, cricketers, golfers, skaters and others, who, moved by a mental aim, are able to undergo a much greater amount of bodily labor than men of stronger muscular frames, actuated by no excitement of mind or vigorous nervous impulse. I have heard an intelligent engineer remark the astonishment often felt by country people, at finding him and his town companions, although more slightly made, withstand the fatigues and exposure of a day's surveying better than themselves; but, said he, they overlooked the fact, that our employment gives to the mind, as well as the body, a stimulus which they were entirely without, as their only object was to afford us bodily aid, when required, in dragging the chains or carrying our instruments. -The conversation of a friend is, in the same way, a powerful alleviator of the fatigue of walking.

The same important principle was implied in the advice which the Spectator tells us was given by a physician to one of the eastern kings, when he brought him a racket, and told him that the remedy was concealed in the handle, and could act upon him only by passing into the palms of his hands when engaged in playing with it and that, as soon as perspiration was induced, he might desist for the time, as that would be a proof of the medicine being received into the general system. The effect, we are told, was marvellous and, looking to the principle just stated, to the cheerful nervous stimulus arising from the confident expectation of a cure, and to the consequent advantages of exercise thus judiciously managed, we have no reason to doubt that the fable is in perfect accordance with nature.

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The story of an Englishman who conceived himself so ill as to be unable to stir, but who was prevailed upon by his medical advisers to go down from London to consult an eminent physician at Inverness, who did not exist, may serve as another illustration. The stimulus of expecting the means of cure from the northern luminary was sufficient to enable the patient not only to bear, but to reap benefit from, the exertion of making the journey down; and his wrath at finding no such person at Inverness, and perceiving that he had been tricked, sustained him in returning, so that on his arrival at home he was nearly cured. Hence also the superiority of battledoor and shuttlecock, and similar games, which require society and some mental stimulus, over listless exercise. It is, in fact, a positive misnomer to call a solemn procession exercise. Nature will not be cheated; and the healthful results of complete cheerful exertion will never be obtained where the nervous impulse which animates the muscles is denied.

It must not, however, be supposed, that a walk simply for the sake of exercise can never be beneficial. If a person be thoroughly satisfied that exercise is requisite, and perfectly willing or rather desirous to obey the call which demands it, he is, from that very circumstance, in a fit state for deriving benefit from it, because the desire then becomes a sufficient nervous impulse, and one in perfect harmony with the muscular action. It is only where a person goes to walk, either from a sense of duty, or at the command of another, but against his own inclination, that exercise is comparatively useless.

This constitution of nature, whereby a mental impulse is required to direct and excite muscular action, points to the propriety of teaching the young to observe and examine the qualities and arrangements of external objects. The most pleasing and healthful exercise may be thus secured, and every step be made to add to useful knowledge and to individual enjoyment. The botanist, the geologist, and the natural historian, experience pleasures in their walks and rambles, of which, from disuse of their eyes and observing powers, the multitude is deprived. This truth is acted upon by many teachers in Germany. In our own country, too, it is beginning to be felt, and one of the professed objects of infant education is to correct the omission. It must not, however, be

supposed that any kind of mental activity will give the necessary stimulus to muscular action, and that, in walking, it will do equally well to read a book or carry on a train of abstract thinking, as to seek the necessary nervous stimulus in picking up plants, hammering rocks, or engaging in games. This were a great mistake; for in such cases the nervous impulse is opposed rather than favorable to muscular action. Ready and pleasant mental activity, like that which accompanies easy conversation with a friend, is indeed beneficial by diffusing a gentle stimulus over the nervous system; and it may be laid down as a general rule that any agreeable employment of an inspiriting and active kind, and which does not absorb the mind, adds to the advantages of muscular exercise; but wherever the mind is engaged in reading, or in abstract speculation, the muscles are drained, as it were, of their nervous energy, by reason of the great exhaustion of it by the brain; the active will to set them in motion is proportionally weakened, and their action is reduced to that inanimate kind I have already condemned as almost useless. From this exposition, the reader will be able to appreciate the hurtfulness of the practice in many boarding-schools, of sending out the girls to walk with a book in their hands, and even obliging them to learn by heart while in the act of walking. It would be difficult, indeed, to invent a method by which the ends in view could be more completely defeated, as regards both mind and body. The very effort of fixing the mind on the printed page when in motion, strains the attention, impedes. the act of breathing, distracts the nervous influence, and thus deprives the exercise of all its advantages. For true and beneficial exercise there must, in cases where the mind is seriously occupied, be harmony of action between the mind which impels, and the part which obeys and acts. The will and the muscles must be both directed to the same end, and at the same time, otherwise the effect will be imperfect. But, in reading during exercise, this can never be the case. The force exerted by strong muscles, animated by strong nervous impulse or will, is prodigiously greater than when the impulse is weak or discordant; and as man was made not to do two things at once, but to direct his whole powers o one thing at a time, he has ever excelled most when he has followed this law of his nature.

136. THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ., OF AYR.

BURNS.

[ROBERT BURNS was born on the 25th of January, 1759, in the district of Kyle, within two miles of the town of Ayr. His father, William Burns, or Burness, was a peasant-one of those strong, independent, pious minds that are especially the growth of Scotland. In the following poem Robert Burns has drawn a noble character of such a man. His brother Gilbert, in a letter dated 1800, says, "Although the Cotter, in the Saturday Night, is an exact copy of my father in his manners, his family devotion, and exhortations, yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us were ever 'at service out among the neebors round.'" William Burns tried to mend his fortune by farming; but his life was one continued struggle, although he contrived to give his children a tolerable education. Toil and privation were familiar to them from their infancy. At fifteen, Robert was the principal laporer on the little farm. The father, bowed down by an accumulation of difficulties, died in 1784. In the meantime Robert had been cherishing his poetical faculty,

"Following his plough along the mountain-side."

In 1786 he printed a volume of his Poems. The admiration which they excited was, in some degree, the ruin of his happiness. He became the wonder of the polite circles of Edinburgh; and the most eminent for station or acquirements gathered round the marvellous ploughman, whose conversation was as brilliant as his writings were original. A second edition of his Poems made him the master of five hundred pounds. He took a farm in Ellisland, in Dumfries-shire. He had legalized his union with the mother of his children. In an evil hour he obtained a situation in the excise, at Dumfries. His duties were, of course, uncongenial. He sought the excitement of festive companions, he yielded to habits of inebriety. Ill health, habitual dejection, occasional bitterness of soul approaching to madness, came over him. He died on the 21st of July, 1796, in his thirty-seventh year. From the first publication of his volume of Poems, Scotland felt that a great spirit had arisen to shed a new lustre on the popular language and literature. It has been a reproach to the contemporaries of Burns that they were unworthy of his genius-that they offered him the unsubstantial incense of flattery, and left him to starve. The reproach appears to us signally unjust. It is difficult to imagine how, with the unfortunate habits which Burns had acquired, and with his highspirited but repulsive independence, his fate could have been other than it was. With such examples of the unhappiness of genius, we still cannot regret that there are no asylums where poets may be watched over like caged nightingales.]

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