he was greatly displeased if any one attempted to pay him regal honours. After several months of hard labour he saw the vessel completed on which he had been working. It was named the St. Peter, and he purchased it. All this time he neglected no known duty that belonged to his station. After the labours of the day were over, he spent his evenings in writing despatches to his members, or consulting with his ambassadors, or forming plans for his own further improvement and the advancement of his people. The best proof of the value of those plans, and of the true grandeur of his conduct, which few of his own age were capable of appreciating, is the fact that all which he accomplished for the Russian people remains to this day, and is likely to remain permanent as the country itself. The foundations he laid remain firm and entire, and all that is valuable in the Russian empire is built upon them.

THE GARDENER'S SON,

AND

THE DUKE OF ARGYLE.

THE Duke of Argyle was walking one day in his garden, when he saw a Latin copy of Sir Isaac Newton's "Principia" lying on the grass, and, thinking it had been brought from his own library, called some one to carry the book back to its place. The son of the Duke's gardener, a young man of seventeen, claimed it as his own.

"Yours!" cried the Duke; "do you understand Geometry, Latin, and Newton."

"I know a little of them," replied the young man. The Duke entered into conversation with the young mathematician, and was astonished by the force, the accuracy, and the candour of his answers.

C

"But how came you by the knowledge of all these things?" asked the Duke.

Edmund Stone replied "A servant taught me, ten years since, to read. Does one need to know anything more than the twenty-four letters in order to learn everything else that one wishes ?"

The Duke sat down on a bank, and requested a detail of the whole process by which he had become so learned.

"I first learned to read," said Stone; "the masons were then at work upon your house. I approached them one day, and observed that the architect used a rule and compass, and that he made calculations. I inquired what might be the meaning and use of these things, and I was informed that there was a science called arithmetic. purchased a book of arithmetic, and I learned it. I was told that there was another science called geometry. I bought the necessary books, and I learned geometry. By reading, I found that there were good books in these two sciences in Latin; I bought a dictionary, and I learned Latin. I understocd, also,

THE DUKE OF ARGYLE.

35

there were good books of the same kind in French; I bought a dictionary, and I learned French. And this, my lord, is what I have done; it seems to me that we may learn everything when we know the twenty-four letters of the alphabet.”

I hardly need tell you that Edmund Stone became a distinguished mathematician.

FRANKLIN'S ARRIVAL IN PHILADELPHIA.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, the great self-educated philosopher of common life, public affairs, and natural science, rose to eminence solely by his own industry, economy, and talent, in the city of Philadelphia, United States. He says

"On my arrival in Philadelphia, I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come by sea. I was covered with dirt, my pockets were filled with shirts and stockings, I was unacquainted with a single soul in the place, and knew not where to seek for a lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and having passed the night without sleep, I was extremely hungry; and all my money consisted of a Dutch