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To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard,
Wrapp'd in his crimes, against the storm prepar'd;
But, when the milder beams of mercy play,
He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak away.

THE character of the true philosopher is to hope all things not impossible; and to believe all things not unreasonable. He who has seen the obscurities which appeared impenetrable in physical and mathematical science suddenly dispelled, and the most barren and unpromising fields of inquiry converted, as if by inspiration, into rich and inexhaustible springs of knowledge and power, on a simple change of our point of view, or by merely bringing to bear on them some principle which it never occurred before to try, will surely be the last to acquiesce in any dispiriting prospects of either the present or future destinies of mankind; while, on the other hand, the boundless views of intellectual and moral, as well as material relations which open upon him on all hands in the course of these pursuits, the knowledge of the trivial place he occupies in the scale of creation, and the sense continually pressed upon him of his own weakness and incapacity to suspend or modify the slightest movement of the vast machinery he sees in action around him, must effectually convince him that humility of pretension, no less than confidence of hope, is what best becomes his character.

HERSCHEL.

WHEN life looks lone and dreary,
What light can dispel the gloom?
When time's swift wing grows weary,
What charm can refresh his plume?
'Tis woman, whose sweetness beameth
O'er all that we feel and see;
And if man of heav'n e'er dreameth,
'Tis when he thinks purely of thee,
Oh, Woman!

Let conquerors fight for glory

Too dearly the meed they gain :

Let patriots live in story—

Too often they die in vain ;

Give kingdoms to those who choose 'em ;
This world can offer to me
No throne like beauty's bosom,
No freedom like serving thee,
Oh, Woman!

OH dismal dole, when the secret soul
Is mock'd by the outward showing;
When we dress the eyes in a gay disguise,
While the tears are inward flowing;
When groans and grief would be a relief,
But with carols we keep them under,

And a laugh we start when the throbbing heart
Is ready to burst asunder.

THO' sacred the tie that our country entwineth,
And dear to the heart her remembrance remains,
Yet darken the ties where no liberty shineth,

And sad the remembrance that slavery stains.
Oh thou! who wert born in the cot of the peasant,
But diest of langour in Luxury's dome,
Our vision, when absent-our glory, when present,
Where thou art, oh Liberty! there is my home.

Farewell to the land in childhood I wander'd!
In vain she is mighty, in vain she is brave!
Unblest is the blood that for tyrants is squander'd,

And Fame has no wreaths for the brow of the slave. But hail to thee, Albion ! who meet'st the commotion Of Europe, as calm as thy cliffs meet the foam; With no bonds but the law, and no slave but the ocean, Hail, temple of liberty! thou art my home!

DE RONI.

How sudden do our prospects vary here!
And how uncertain ev'ry good we boast!
Hope oft deceives us; and our very joys
Shrink with fruition;—pall, and rust away.
How wise are we in thought!-How weak in practice!
Our very virtue, like our will is-nothing.
Frail nature, take thy course! 'tis almost vain
To struggle and oppose thee.-What is life?
What all its comforts, but delusive dreams,
That play on fancy with a meteor flame
Of empty, airy good.

SHIRLEY.

MODERATION is the silken string running through the pearl-chain of all the virtues.

MEN are machines, with all their boasted freedom. Their movements turn upon some fav'rite passion; Let art but find the latent foible out,

We touch the spring, and wind them at our pleasure.

BROOK.

THE grand and indeed only character of Truth, is its capability of enduring the test of universal experience, and coming unchanged out of every possible form of fair discussion.

HERSCHEL.

THE whisper'd "No"-how little meant-
Sweet falsehood that endears consent.

THE hope of profit is always a stimulating, but a degrading motive; it dims the clearest intellect, it stills the proudest feelings. Habit and prejudice will soon reconcile even genius to the work of money, and to avow the motive without a blush.

D'ISRAELI.

H

GENTLY Scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human :

One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving why they do it:
And just as lamely can ye mark
How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us,

He knows each chord-its various tone,
Each spring-its various bias :

Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;

What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.

BURNS.

A NATION, ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion of liberality; his obstinacy of firmness. If the most reasonable excuse be rejected, few acts of obedience will be found impossible; and guilt must tremble, where innocence cannot always be secure.

GIBBON.

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