serve it by praising of him: if in sicknesse, I will strive to remove it, by praying to him. He shall bee my God in sicknesse, and in health, and my trust shall bee in him in health and in sicknesse. So in my health, I shall not need to feare sicknesse, nor in any sicknesse dispaire of health. FROM HABINGTON'S CASTARA-1640. A WIFE Is the sweetest part in the harmony of our being. To the love of which, as the charms of nature inchant us, so the law of grace by speciall priviledge invites us. She is so religious that every day crowns her a martyr, though her zeale be neither rebellious nor uncivill. She is so true a friend, her husband may to her communicate even his ambitions, and if successe crowne not expec tation, remaine neverthelesse uncontemn'd. She is colleague with him in the empire of prosperity; and a safe retyring place when adversity exiles him from the world. She is so chaste, she never understood the language lust speakestin, nor with a smile applaudes it, although there appeare wit in the metaphore. Shee is faire onely to winne on his affections, nor would she be mistris of the most eloquent beauty, if there were danger that it might persuade the passionate auditory to the least irregular thought. She is liberall, and yet owes not ruine to vanity, but knows charity to be the soule of goodnesse, and virtue without reward often prove to bee her owne destroyer. Shee is much at home, and when shee visits 'tis for mutuall commerce, not for intelligence. Shee can goe to court, and returne no passionate doater on bravery; and when shee hath seene the gay things muster up themselves there, shee considers them as cobwebs the spider vanity hath spunne. Shee is so generall in her acquaintance, that shee is familiar with all whom fame speaks vertuous; but thinks there can bee no friendship but with one; and therefore hath neither shee friend nor private servant. Shee so squares her passion to her husband's fortunes, that in the country shee lives without a froward melancholy, in the towne without a fantastique pride. She is so temperate, shee never read the moderne pollicie of glorious surfeits; since shee finds nature is no epicure if art provoke her not by curiositie. Shee is inquisitive onely of new wayes to please him, and her wit sayles by no other compasse than that of his direction. His virtues are her wonder and imitation; and his errors her credulitie thinks no In a more frailtie than makes him descend to the title of man. word, shee so lives that shee may dye, and leave no cloude upon her memory, but have her character nobly mentioned: while the bad wife is flattered into infamy, and buyes pleasure at too deare a rate, if shee onely payes for it repentance. FROM "OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS." : BY THE HON. ROBERT BOYLE. THERE is no act of memory like a death-bed's review of one's life sickness, and a nearer prospect of death, often make a man remember those actions, wherein youth and jollity made him forget his duty and those frivolous arguments, which, when he was in health and free from danger, were able to excuse him to his own indulgent thoughts, he himself will scarce now think valid enough to excuse him unto God, before whom if the sinless angels cover their faces, sinful mortals may justly tremble to be brought to appear. When the approach of death makes the bodily eyes grow dim, those of the conscience are enabled to discern, that, as to many of the pleas we formerly acquiesced in, it was the prevalence of our senses that made us think them reason; and none of that jolly company, whose examples prevailed with us to join with them in a course of vanity, will stand by us at the bar to excuse the actions they tempted us to; and if they were there, they would be so far from being able to justify us, that they would be condemned themselves. It is true, if we consider death only as the conclusion of life, and a debt all men, sooner or later, pay to nature, not only a christian, but a man may entertain it without fear: but if one consider it as a change, that after having left his body to rot in the grave, will bring his soul to the tribunal of God, to answer the miscarriages of his whole past life, and receive there an unalterable sentence, that will doom him to endless and inconceivable joys, or inexpressible torments; I think it is not inconsistent either with piety or courage, to look upon so great a change with something of commotion. Many that would not fear to be put out of the world will apprehend to be let into eternity. ON LICENTIOUS POETRY, 'FOR more than half a century English literature had been distinguished by its moral purity, the effect, and in its turn, the cause of an improvement in national manners. A father might, without apprehension of evil, have put into the hands of his children any book which issued from the press, if it did not bear, either in its title page or frontispiece, manifest signs that it was intended as furniture for the brothel. There was no danger in any work which bore the name of a respectable publisher, or was to be procured of any respectable bookseller. This was particularly the case with regard to our poetry. It is now no longer so; and woe to those by whom the offence cometh! The greater the talents of the offender, the greater is his guilt, and the more enduring his shame.' ******* Individuals are bound to consider that such pernicious works would neither be published nor written, if they were discouraged as they might, and ought to be, by public feeling; every person, therefore, who purchases such books, or admits them into his house, promotes the mischief, and thereby, as far as in him lies, becomes an aider and abetter of the crime. "The publication of a lascivious book is one of the worst of fences which can be committed against the well-being of society. It is a sin, to the consequences of which no limits can be assigned, and those consequences no after repentance in the writer can counteract. Whatever remorse of conscience he may feel, when his hour comes (and come it must!) will be of no avail. The poignancy of a death-bed repentance cannot cancel one copy of the thousands which are sent abroad; and as long as it continues to be read, so long is he the pander of posterity, and so long is he heaping up guilt upon his soul in perpetual accumulation.' ********* 'The evil is political as well as moral, for indeed moral and political evils are inseparably connected. Truly has it been affirmed by one of our ablest and clearest reasoners, that "the destruction of governments may be proved and deduced from the general corruption of the subjects' manners, as a direct and natural cause thereof, by a demonstration as certain as any in the mathematics." There is no maxim more frequently enforced by Machiavelli, than that where the manners of a people are generally corrupted, there the government cannot long subsist ;— a truth which all history exemplifies; and there is no means whereby that corruption can be so surely and rapidly diffused, as by poisoning the waters of literature!'-[Southey, 1821.] FROM BOWRING'S SPECIMENS OF THE RUSSIAN POETS. EVENING REFLECTIONS, ON THE MAJESTY OF GOD, ON SEEING THE GREAT NORTHERN LIGHTS. BY LOMONOSOV. Now day conceals her face, and darkness fills The abyss of heaven appears-the stars are kindling round; Just as a sand 'whelmed in the infinite sea- A mote, by midnight's maddened whirlwind driven- And we are told by wisdom's knowing ones, And each a link amidst creation is ; There dwells the Godhead too-there shines his wisdom's essenceHis everlasting strength-his all-supporting presence. Where are thy secret laws, O nature, where? Thy north-lights dazzle in the wintry zone : See in yon frozen seas what glories have their birth; Thence night leads forth the day to illuminate the earth. Come then, philosopher! whose privileged eye What fills with dazzling beams the illumined air? Is there some vast, some hidden magazine, Thou knowest not! 'tis doubt, 'tis darkness all! Creation's heights and depths are all unknown-untrod- A THOUGHT ON DEATH. BY MRS. BARBAULD.-WRITTEN IN HER EIGHTIETH YEAR. WHEN life in opening buds is sweet, Alas! how hard it is to die' When scarce is seized some borrowed prize, Forbid the soul from earth to rise, How awful then it is to die! When one by one those ties are torn, And man is left alone to mourn, Ah! then how easy 'tis to die! When trembling limbs refuse their weight, "Tis nature's precious boon to die! When faith is strong, and conscience clear, And visioned glories half appear, "Tis joy, 'tis triumph then to die! |