For the form was his supplest courtier's, Perfect in every limb;

But the bearing was that of the henchman Who filled the flagons for him;

The brow was a priest's, who pondered

His parchment early and late;

The eye was a wandering minstrel's
Who sang at the palace gate;

The lips, half sad and half mirthful,
With a fitting, tremulous grace,

Were the very lips of a woman
He had kissed in the market-place;
But the smile which her curves transfigured
As a rose with a shimmer of dew,

Was the smile of the wife who loved him,
Queen Ethelyn, good and true.

Then "Learn, O king," said the artist,
"This truth that the picture tells—
How, in every form of the human,
Some hint of the Highest dwells;
How, scanning each living temple,
For the place where the veil is thin,
We may gather, by beautiful glimpses,
Some form of the God within."

VII.-SHORT SELECTIONS.

AMBITION.

NATURE, that framed us of four elements,
Warring within our breasts for regimen,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds;
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world,
And measure ev'ry wand'ring planet's course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,

Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss, and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of a heavenly crown.

-Marlowe.

PERSEVERANCE.

STICK to your aim: the mongrel's hold will slip,
But only crow-bars loose the bull-dog's grip;
Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields
Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields.

-Holmes.

ARGUMENT.

BE calm in arguing; for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.
Why should I feel another man's mistakes
More than his sicknesses or his poverty?
In love I should; but anger is not love,
Nor wisdom either; therefore gently move.

AUTHORITY.

AUTHORITY intoxicates,

And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,

And make men giddy, proud, and vain;
By this the fool commands the wise,
The noble with the base complies,

The sot assumes the role of wit,

And cowards make the base submit.

-Butler.

CANDOR.

You talk to me in parables:

You may have known that I'm no wordy man;
Fine speeches are the instruments of knaves

Or fools that use them, when they want good sense;
But honesty

Needs no disguise or ornament; be plain.

-Otway.

VIII. INSTINCT OF LOCALITY IN ANIMALS AND BIRDS.

THE instinct of animals, in many cases, is acknowledged to equal reason, if not to surpass it. Numerous anecdotes of this faculty are recorded, from White's "Selborne" down.

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This instinct of locality is one more or less familiar to every observer of nature. Whoever has bird-houses about the house must have suspected that the same wrens and martins come, year after year, to build in the same place.

We know of a lady, who, desirous of testing this, selected a blind wren from several who built about her dwelling, and was careful to notice, the spring following, if he returned, which he did.

In the city of Reading is a barber, who erected several large bird-boxes, which, in time, came to be inhabited by hundreds of martins, who, with their children, resorted thither annually. One year he moved across the street, taking with him his bird-boxes. When spring returned, the flocks of martins came back, but not to their new locality. They flew, as usual, to the old one, where they remained for a whole day, restless, and lost, though the boxes were only across the street.

At last, however, they were induced to enter their old homes, shifted to the new locality; and now, year after year, the martins return, blacking the air at morning and evening as they leave and return to their nests.

An even more curious anecdote of the instinct of locality has come to us from a highly veracious quarter. In the town of Franklin, Pennsylvania, once lived a gentleman who was fond of bees. One morning he observed four toads sitting just below his hive. The next day the same toads were there, grave and solemn as sphinxes before an Egyptian temple. One was black; another bright colored; a third blind; a fourth marked in some other distinguished way.

Thinking they annoyed the bees, and seeing that they pertinaciously preserved their position day after day, he put them into a basket, carried them across the Alleghany River, and left them at the top of a hill. What was his surprise, three weeks after, to find them at their old post, as grave and solemn as ever.

Again he removed them, taking them this time in a different direction, and leaving them at a point much farther off. In about six weeks, however, they were back for the third time.

A neighbor, to whom the incident was told, and was incredulous, next tried to lose them, but in a few weeks the toads were seen, one morning, entering the garden, under the leadership of one of their number, who gave a "cheep, cheep," looked back for his suite, and then hopped on, followed by the rest, till he reached his old station under the bee-hive, where he gravely took up his quarters.

Every one familiar with the woods knows how easily a wild bee can be tracked to its hive in the forest. If you take four bees from a city hive, carry them to as many points of the compass within any distance that can be managed in an afternoon's drive, and then let them free, each bee will soar up into the air, and afterward shoot, as straight as an arrow, in the direction of its home, where, in due time, you will find it again.

The instinct of dogs and horses, in finding their way back to their kennels and stables, when their owners, though endowed with reason, are hopelessly lost, has been proved by too many well-authenticated instances to be doubted.

The observation of instinct would be a pleasing and instructive recreation, and it is surprising that more persons do not devote their attention to it. To those living in the country, the opportunities are so frequent that the neglect of them seems little short of a crime.

A man is always better for being brought into sympathy

with the brute creation. The study of the habits of animals and birds enlarges the heart, and gives breadth to the intellect, as well as stores the memory with a vast variety of curious and instructive facts. Audubon was as singlehearted and reverent as he was wise and entertaining.

IX.-A SERMON IN VERSE.

TIRED? Well, what of that?

Didst fancy life was spent on beds of ease,
Fluttering the rose-leaves scattered by the breeze?
Come, rouse thee! work while it is called to-day;
Coward, arise! go forth thy way!

Lonely? And what of that?

Some must be lonely; 't is not given to all

To feel a heart responsive rise and fall-
To blend another life into its own;

Work may be done in loneliness: work on!

Dark? Well, what of that?

Didst fondly dream the sun would never set?
Dost fear to lose thy way? Take courage yet;
Learn thou to walk by faith and not by sight:
Thy steps will guided be, and guided right.

Hard? Well, and what of that?

Didst fancy life one summer holiday,

With lessons none to learn, and naught but play?
Go, get thee to thy task. Conquer or die!

It must be learned; learn it, then, patiently.

No help? Nay, 'tis not so;

Though human help be far, thy God is nigh,
Who feeds the ravens, hears his children cry;
He's near thee wheresoe'er thy footsteps roam;
And he will guide thee, light thee, help thee home.