The merchant, who towards spicy regions sails,
  Smells their perfume far off, in adverse gales;
  With blasts which thus against the faithful blow,
  Fresh odorous breathings of God’s goodness flow.

  Bp.  Ken.  Works, i. 494.

It is an interesting proof of the fertility of Dr. Townson’s mental resources, that in the original manuscript, he has left behind, on a separate leaf, an equally fine illustration; to be occasionally substituted for that which has called forth these remarks.  It were injustice to withhold it from the reader: 

“In this situation, the devout Christian may be compared to a traveller journeying towards some fair city, in which he has beforehand established a good correspondence.  He has climbed the hill that stands next to it; and, though the distance still forbids him to take a distinct survey of it, yet the prospect of its towers and buildings rising before him, of its spires and pinnacles glittering in the air, and of peace and pleasantness in its borders, revives his heart.  The consideration of his past perils and fatigues now gives him pleasure.  He is thankful to a gracious Providence, that has led him almost through them, and brought him to a point, whence he has a downward and direct way to a place of rest and abode; in which he will meet with a cordial reception, and be delighted with new scenes of beauty, magnificence, and wonder.  With such satisfaction doth faith fill the heart of the religious pilgrim and stranger, when he has nearly travelled through the changes and chances of this mortal life, and feels himself approaching to the heavenly Jerusalem, the abiding city.”

The accomplished author, himself, like Milton, a traveller, here blends his own observation of foreign lands, with his recollections of our great poet:—­

                 As when a scout
  Through dark and desert ways with peril gone
  All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn,
  Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
  Which to his eye discovers unaware
  The goodly prospect of some foreign land
  First seen, or some renown’d metropolis,
  With glitt’ring spires and pinnacles adorn’d,
  Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams.

Paradise Lost, iii. 543.

The Sunday Library, it should be added, is printed in correspondent style with the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, and each volume has a finely engraved Frontispiece Portrait.

* * * * *

VENETIAN HISTORY.