TOPICS OF THE DAY.
REST.
Row various and innumerable are the uses of this little word! There is the rest of a traveller, and of the Sabbath, which Graham and Elliott have commemorated ; or of Shakspere-
" Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course."
The Bank of England has a rest, which is a surplus of unap- propriated capital to repose upon : a capital rest for any corpora- tion, aggregate or sole. There is the rest of a sailor at the end of a voyage,—mostly a wild dissipation of previous hard earnings ; or -of a soldier at the close of a campaign,—often by entering a hospi- lel, recruiting on gruel and bandaging up wounds, with the chance of future ones or of glory. According to Locke, recreation is rest, or a "change of the weary part." Repose is not always rest; long continued, it becomes wearisome fatigue. Alternation of occupa- tion, as the philosopher hints, " from grave to gay, from lively to Severe," is the true regenerator. For cloistered gloom the student seeks the bustle of towns or the cheering sights and sweets of rural landscape. Cricket, boating, -wrestling, dancing, are exercises ; but they refresh—rest the sedentary, though they tire. Perpetual change like that in which Nature indulges is the most certain and universal elixir. All have need of renewal ; all have need of. rest ; and, with exceptions, all have it. The heavenly bodies alone rest not; they are in constant motion, like Lord Brougham,—never stop, never tire : but, unlike his Lordship, they are silent.
Intermissions of toil are needed even in legislators, and the Col- lective Wisdom of the Nation is resting for the Easter holyday- .has hied from debates, motions, and committees, to disport in foreign capitals, or in native fields and woods listen to the thrush and blackbird or cuckoo's softer note, in lieu of the calls of the Speaker and the crack of the Treasury whip ! Two months have sufficed to blunt the edge of national appetite ; and the foundation has been laid of all the sessional work meant to be completed within the legidative year. aimy holyday times these for Ministers, and for all people with annuities, fixed salaries, or quarterly pay ; with the best wheat :offered by the M.P. for Wakefield to be delivered in any quantity at thirty-five shillings a quarter !
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