It is not always possible

Still to preserve that infant purity

Which the voice teaches in our inmost heart. Still in alarum, for ever on the watch

Against the wiles of wicked men, e'en Virtue Will sometimes bear away her outward robes Soiled in the wrestle with iniquity;

This is the curse of every evil deed,

That, propagating still, it brings forth evil.

COLERIDGE.

VIRTUE.

SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

GEO. HERBERT.

WHERE Death waits for us is uncertain : let us every where look for him. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; who has learnt to die, has forgot to serve. There is nothing of evil in life, for him who rightly comprehends, that death is no evil. To know how to die, delivers us from all subjection and constraint.

MONTAIGNE.

SIMPLICITY.

THOUGH taste, though genius, bless

To some divine excess,

Faint the cold work till Thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply

May court, may charm, our eye;

Thou, only Thou, canst raise the meeting soul !

COLLINS.

IL est si beau d'aimer et d'être aimé, que cet hymne de la vie peut se moduler à l'infini sans que le cœur en éprouve de lassitude; ainsi l'on revient avec joie au motif d'un chant embelli par des notes brillantes.

MAD. DE STAEL.

To do whate'er Heaven gives in sacred charge,
Nor dare to sound its fathomless decrees,
This, and this only is meritorious zeal.

MILLER.

WHEN time shall have revealed the future progress of our race, those laws which are now obscurely indicated, will then become distinctly apparent; and it may possibly be found that the dominion of mind over the material world advances with an ever-accelerating force. Even now, the imprisoned winds which the earliest poet made the Grecian warrior bear for the protection of his fragile bark; or those which, in more modern times, the Lapland wizards sold to the deluded sailors ;-these, the unreal creations of fancy or of fraud, called, at the command of Science, from their shadowy existence, obey a holier spell; and the unruly masters of the poet and the seer become the obedient slaves of civilized man.

BABBAGE.

THE PRIMROSE.

Ask me why I send you here

This firstling of the infant year;

Ask me why I send to you

This primrose all bepearl'd with dew?

I will strait whisper in your ears

The sweets of love are washt with tears:

Ask me why this flow'r doth show

So sickly, green, and yellow too;
Ask me why the stalk is weak

And bending, though it doth not break?

I must tell you, these discover

What doubts and fears are in a lover. CAREW.

FATHERS alone a father's heart can know
What secret tides of still enjoyment flow,
When brothers love; but if their hate succeeds,
They wage the war, but 'tis the father bleeds.

YOUNG.

GENIUS, with virtue, still may lack the aid
Implored by humble minds and hearts afraid;
May leave to timid souls the shield and sword
Of the tried Faith, and the resistless Word:
Amid a world of dangers venturing forth,
Frail but yet fearless, proud in conscious worth,
Till strong temptation, in some fatal time,
Assails the heart, and wins the soul to Crime;
When left by Honour, and by Sorrow spent,
Unus'd to pray, unable to repent;

The nobler powers that once exalted high
Th' aspiring man, shall then degraded lie;
Reason, through anguish, shall her throne forsake
And strength of mind but stronger madness make.

CRABBE.

THE Indian sleeps at the stake, in the intervals between his tortures; and mental torments, in like manner, exhaust by long continuance the sensibility of the sufferer, so that an interval of lethargic repose must necessarily ensue ere the pangs which they inflict can again be renewed.

WALTER SCOTT.

SINCE in this dreary vale of tears
No certainty but Death appears,
Why should we waste our vernal years
In hoarding useless treasure?

No!-let the young and ardent mind
Become the friend of human kind,
And in the generous service find

A source of purer pleasure.

Better to live despised and poor
Than guilt's eternal stings endure;
The future smile of God shall cure

The wound of earthly woes.

Vain world! did we but rightly feel
What ills thy treach'rous charms conceal,
How would we long from thee to steal
To Death and sweet repose!
STRANGFORD'S CAMIENS.

IT is a common error, of which a wise man will beware, to measure the worth of our neighbour by his conduct towards ourselves. How many rich souls might we not rejoice in the knowledge of, were it not for our pride.

RICHTER.