How dear to me the hour when daylight dies,
And sunbeams melt along the silent sea;
For then sweet dreams of other days arise,
And Memory breathes her vesper sigh to thee!

And, as I watch the line of light that plays

Along the smooth wave tow'rd the burning west, I long to tread that golden path of rays,

And think 'twould lead to some bright isle of rest.

MOORE.

A RAY of light communicated to the understanding is of more value, than a whole volume committed to memory. This, is like water in a cistern, which may be exhausted; that, is like a fountain yielding a continued supply.

WREN.

HARK! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,

And Phoebus 'gins arise,

His steeds to water at those springs,

On chalic'd flowers that lies;

And winking Mary-buds begin

To ope their golden eyes; With every thing that pretty bin, My lady sweet, arise;

Arise, arise.

SHAKESPEARE

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them, to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them...Unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a Man, as kill a good Book: who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good Book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good Book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

MILTON.

My way must be straight on.

True with the tongue,

False with the heart-I may not, cannot be;
Nor can I suffer that a man should trust me-

As his friend trust me—and then lull my conscience
With such low pleas as these :-" I asked him not—
He did it all at his own hazard-and

My mouth has never lied to him”—No, no!
What a friend takes me for, that I must be.

COLERIDGE.

THE happiness of the body consists in health--that of the mind, in knowledge.

FRIENDSHIP, peculiar boon of Heaven,
The noble mind's delight and pride,
To men and angels only given,

To all the lower world denied ;

While Love, unknown among the bless'd,
Parent of thousand wild desires,
The savage and the human breast
Torments alike with raging fires:

With bright but oft destructive gleam,
Alike o'er all his lightnings fly;
Thy lambent glories only beam
Around the favourites of the sky.

Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys,
On fools and villains ne'er descend;

In vain for thee the tyrant sighs,
And hugs a flatterer for a friend.

Directress of the brave and just,

O, guide us through life's darksome way! And let the tortures of mistrust On selfish bosoms only prey.

Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow,
When souls to peaceful climes remove;

What raised our virtue here below,

Shall aid our happiness above.

TRUST in the assistance of an Almighty Being naturally produces patience, hope, cheerfulness, and all other dispositions of mind that alleviate those calamities which we are not able to remove. The practice of this virtue administers great comfort to the mind of man in times of poverty and affliction, but most of all in the hour of death. When the soul is hovering in the last moments of its separation, when it is just entering on another state of existence, to converse with scenes and objects, and companions that are altogether new, what can support her under such tremblings of thought, such fear, such anxiety such apprehensions, but the casting of all her cares upon Him who first gave her being, who has conducted her through one stage of it, and will be always with her, to guide and comfort her in her progress through eternity.

ADDISON.

OF Fancy's too prevailing power beware!
Oft has she bright on life's fair morning shone,
Oft seated Hope on Reason's sovereign throne;
Then clos'd the scene, in darkness and despair.
Of all her gifts, of all her powers possest,
Let not her flattery win thy youthful ear,
Nor vow long faith to such a various guest,
False at the last, though now perchance full dear;
The casual lover with her charms is blest,

But woe to them her magic bands that wear!

LANGHORNE.

THROUGHOUT the world, if it were sought,
Fair words enough a man shall find,
They be good cheap, they cost right nought,
Their substance is but only wind;

But well to say, and so to mean,
That sweet accord is seldom seen.

SIR THOMAS WYATT.

THINK that the minds of men are various as their faces, that the modes and employments of life are numberless as they are necessary, that there is more than one class of merit, that though others may be wrong in some things, they are not so in all, and that countless races of men have been born, have lived, and died without ever hearing of any one of those points in which you take a just pride and pleasure, and you will not err on the side of that spiritual pride or intellectual coxcombry, which has been so often the bane of the studious and the learned. HAZLITT.

WRAPT in error is the human mind,
And human bliss is ever insecure.

Know ye what fortune yet remains behind?
Know ye how long the present shall endure?