Timid as the tale of woe;

Tender as the wood-dove's sigh;
Lovely as the flowers below;

Changeless as the stars on high.-L. E. Landon.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

If there be one thing pure,
When all beside is sullied;
That can endure

When all else pass away;
If there be aught

Surpassing human deed, or word, or thought,—
It is a mother's love!

MEMORY.

O MEMORY! thou fond deceiver!

Still importunate and vain ; To former joys recurring ever,

And turning all the past to pain;

Thou, like the world, the oppressed oppressing,
Thy smiles increase the wretch's woe;

And he who wants each other blessing,
In thee must ever find a foe.--Goldsmith.

BRITISH FREEDOM.

IT is not to be thought that the flood

Of British Freedom, which to the open sea
Of the world's praise from dark antiquity

Hath flowed," with pomp of water unwithstood,”
Roused though it be full often to a mood

Which spurns the check of salutary bands,

That this most furious stream in bogs and sands
Should perish, and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung

Armoury of the invincible knights of old ;

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue

That Shakspeare spake, the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held. In everything we are sprung
Of earth's first blood, have titles manifold.—Wordsworth.

THE HUMAN SEASONS.

FOUR seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man :
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span;

He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven; quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness-to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too, of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.-Keats.

GREEK EPIGRAMS.

FATHER of flatterers, GOLD, of pain and care begot,
A fear it is to have thee, and a pain to have thee not-Palladus
Grey hairs are wisdom-if you hold your tongue :
Speak, and they are but hairs, as in the young.-Philo.
The happy think a lifetime a short stage :
One night to the unhappy seems an age.—Lucian.
Slow-footed Counsel is most sure to gain;
Rashness still brings repentance in her train.—Ibid.

FROM THE PERSIAN.

ON parent knees, a naked new-born child,
Weeping thou sat'st, when all around thee smiled;
So live that, sinking in thy last long sleep,

Calm thou may'st smile, while all around thee weep.

What boots it to repeat

How time is slipping underneath our feet?
Un-born To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet?

HEALTH.

THE surest road to health, say what they will
Is never to suppose we shall be ill.

Most of those evils we poor mortals know,
From doctors and imagination flow.-Churchill.

OLD AGE AND DEATH.

THE seas are quiet when the winds give o'er ;
So calm are we when passions are no more:
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things too certain to be lost.

Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made;
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,

As they draw near to their eternal home.

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.-Waller.

OF TREASON.

TREASON doth never prosper; what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.-Sir J. Harrington.

OF FORTUNE.

FORTUNE, men say, doth give too much to many,
But yet she never gave enough to any.—Ibid.

་

THE WORLD'S HUZZA.

I HAVE seen too much of success in life to take off my hat and huzza to it as it passes by in its gilt coach, and would do my little part with my neighbours on foot that they should not gape with too much wonder, nor applaud too loudly. Is it the Lord Mayor going in state to mince pies and the Mansion House? Is it poor Jack of Newgate's procession, with the sheriff and javelin-men conducting him on his last journey to Tyburn? I look into my heart, and think I am as good as my Lord Mayor, and as bad as Tyburn Jack. Give me a chain and red gown and a pudding before me, and I could play the part of alderman very well, and sentence Jack after dinner. Starve me, keep me from books and honest people,-educate me to love dice, gin, and pleasure, and put me on Hounslow Heath, with a purse before me, and I will take it. "And I shall be deservedly hanged," say you, wishing to put an end to this prosing. I don't say no; I can't but accept the world as I find it, including a rope as long as it is in fashion.— Thackeray.

THE TRUE CONSOLER.

HE who doth not smoke hath either known no great griefs, or refuseth himself the softest consolation next to that which comes from heaven. "What, softer than woman?" whispers the young reader. Young reader, woman teases as well as consoles. Woman makes half the sorrows which she boasts the privilege to soothe. Woman consoles us, it is true, while we are young and handsome; when we are old and ugly, woman snubs and scolds us. On the whole, then, woman in this scale, the weed in that,―Jupiter, hang out thy balance, and weigh

them both; and if thou give the preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles thee, O Jupiter! try the weed.-Lord Lytton's "What will he do with it ?"

INSPIRATION FROM TOBACCO.
THE pungent, nose-refreshing weed,
Which, whether, pulverised, it gain
A speedy passage to the brain,
Or whether, touched with fire, it rise

In circling eddies to the skies,

Doth thought more quicken and refine

Than all the breath of all the Nine.-Cowper.

TOBACCO.

THE fact is, squire, the moment a man takes to a pipe, he becomes a philosopher;-it's the poor man's friend; it calms the mind, soothes the temper, and makes a man patient under difficulties. It has made more good men, good husbands, kind masters, indulgent fathers, than any other blessed thing on this universal earth.-Sam Slick: The Clock-maker.

ONE MAN'S LOSS, ANOTHER MAN'S GAIN.

DENADES, the Athenian, condemned a fellow-citizen who furnished out funerals, for demanding too great a price for his goods; and if he got an estate, it must be by the death of a great many people: but I think it a sentence ill-grounded, forasmuch as no profit can be made but at the expense of some other person, and that every kind of gain is by that rule to be condemned. The tradesman thrives by the debauchery of youth, and the farmer by the dearness of corn; the architect by the ruin of buildings; the officers of justice by quarrels and law-suits,—nay, even the honour and function of divines is owing to our mortality and vices. No physician takes pleasure in the health of even his best friends, said the ancient Greek comedian, nor soldier in the peace of his country, and so of the rest. And what is yet worse, let every one but examine his own heart, and he will find that his private wishes spring and grow up at the expense of some other person. Nature does not hereby deviate from her general policy, for the naturalist holds the birth, nourishment, and increase of any one thing, is the decay and corruption of another.-Montaigne's Essays.

MINUTE PHILOSOPHY: AN APOLOGUE.

ONE fine summer's evening an adventurous Bee was giving the history of his day's excursion to the assembled multitude before the door of the hive. "I soared so high," said he, "that I lost sight of the earth beneath me; the flowers upon its surface were no longer

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visible." "Not that your flight was so extensive, but your sight is so narrow," interposed the Swallow; I saw you all the time, just above the furze on the common. Luckily for you I was not hungry."

Thus many things are pronounced impossible which are only incomprehensive to the speaker. Many subjects are said to be above human reason, which are only above the reason of the reasoner.

READING.

IDLENESS is a disease that must be combated, but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. A young man should read five hours in the day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge.-Johnson.

THE BEST WAY OF LIFE.

SILENUS was said to have taught, It is better either to have never been born, or immediately to die. This sentiment is embodied in the following verses which have been ascribed to Posidippus :

Which the best way of life? The forum rings
With bickering brawls; home, too, vexation brings;
Toil in the country, terror reigns at sea;

Abroad wealth trembles lest its goods may flee;
And want is woe; trouble, thy name is wife;
A single is a solitary life:

Children are cares; cheerless a childless state;
Youth is but folly; weak a hoary pate.

Since thus it is, a wise man still should cry,
Ne'er to be born, or being born, to die.

The other side of the argument is maintained by Metrodorus:

Good all the ways of life: the forum rings

With deeds of glorious enterprise; home brings
Sweet rest; the charms of nature clothe the fields;
The sea brings gain; abroad wealth honour yields;
Want may be hid; comfort, thy name is wife;
A single is a free and easy life.

Children are joys; care shuns the childless bed;
Strength attends youth; reverence the hoary head.
Since thus it is, a wise man's choice should be,
Both to be born, and born such good to see.

The above translations are both by Mr. Hay.