4. Nor will his themes be few or trivial, because apparently shut in between the walls of houses, and having merely the decorations of street scenery. A ruined character is as picturesque as a ruined castle. There are dark abysses and yawning gulfs in the human heart, which can be rendered. passable only by bridging them over with iron nerves and sinews, as Challey bridged the Sarine in Switzerland, and Telford the sea between Anglesea and England, with chain bridges. These are the great themes of human thought; not green grass, and flowers, and moonlight. Besides, the mere external forms of nature we make our own, and carry with us into the city, by the power of memory.

EXERCISE XCII.

THE BELFRY PIGEON.

N. P. WILLIA

1. On the cross-beam under the Old South bell,

The nest of a pigeon is builded well.

In summer and winter that bird is there,
Out and in with the morning air;

I love to see him track the street,
With his wary eye and active feet;
And I ofter watch him as he springs,
Circling the steeple with easy wings,
Till across the dial his shade has pass'd,
And the belfry edge is gain'd at last.

"T is a bird I love, with its brooding note,
And the trembling throb in its mottled throat ;
There's a human look in its swelling breast,

And the gentle curve of its lowly crest;
And I often stop with the fear I feel,

He runs so close to the rapid wheel.

2.

3.

4.

Whatever is rung on that noisy bellChime of the hour, or funeral knell—

The dove in the belfry must hear it well.

When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon.
When the sexton cheerily rings for noon,
When the clock strikes clear at morning light,
When the child is waked with "nine at night,"
When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air
Filling the spirit with tones of prayer,—
Whatever tale in the bell is heard,

He broods on his folded feet unstirred,
Or, rising half in his rounded nest,
He takes the time to smooth his breast,
Then drops again, with filmed eyes,
And sleeps as the last vibration dies.

Sweet bird! I would that I could be
A hermit in the crowd like thee!
With wings to fly to wood and glen!
Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men;
And daily, with unwilling feet,
I tread, like thee, the crowded street;
But, unlike me, when day is o'er,
Thou canst dismiss the world, and soar,
Or, at a half-felt wish for rest,

Canst smooth thy feathers on thy breast,
And drop, forgetful, to thy nest.

I would that, in such wings of gold, I could my weary heart upfold;

I would I could look down unmoved,

(Unloving as I am unloved,)

And, while the world throngs on beneath

Smooth down my cares and calmly breathe;

And never sad with others' sadness,
And never glad with others' gladness,
Listen, unstirred, to knell or chime,
And, lapped in quiet, bide my time.

1

2

3.

4

EXERCISE XCIII.

THE STORMY PETREL.

PARK BENJAMIK.

This is the bird that sweeps o'er the sea-
Fearless and rapid and strong is he;
He never forsakes the billowy roar

To dwell in calm on the tranquil shore,

Save when his mate from the tempest's shocks
Protects her young in the splintered rocks.

Birds of the sea, they rejoice in storms;

On the top of the wave you may see their forms;
They run and dive, and they whirl and fly,
Where the glittering foam-spray breaks on high;
And against the force of the strongest gale,
Like phantom ships, they soar and sail.

All over the ocean, far from land,

When the storm-king rises dark and grand,
The mariner sees the petrel meet

The fathomless waves with steady feet,

And a tireless wing and a dauntless breast,
Without a home or a hope of rest.

So, mid the contest and toil of life,

My soul when the billows of rage and strife
Are tossing high, and the heavenly blue
Is shrouded by vapors of somber hue-
Like the petrel, wheeling o'er foam and spray,
Onward and upward pursue thy way!

EXERCISE XCIV.

COMMUNINGS OF NATURE.

1. Pleasant were many scenes, but most to me The solitude of vast extent, untouched

By hand of art, where Nature showed herself,

POLLOK

And reaped her crops; whose garments were the clouds;
Whose minstrels, brooks; whose lamps, the moon and stars;
Whose organ-choir, the voice of many waters;

Whose banquets, morning dews; whose heroes, storms;
Whose warriors, mighty winds; whose lovers, flowers;
Whose orators, the thunderbolts of God;
Whose palaces, the everlasting hills;
Whose ceiling, heaven's unfathomable blue;
And from whose rocky turrets, battled high,
Prospect immense spread out on all sides round,
Lost now between the welkin and the main,
Now walled with hills that slept above the storm.

2. Most fit was such a place for musing men,
Happiest sometimes when musing without aim.
It was, indeed, a wondrous sort of bliss
The lonely bard enjoyed when forth he walked,
Unpurposed; stood, and knew not why; sat down,
And knew not where; arose, and knew not when,
Had eyes, and saw not; ears, and nothing heard;
And sought-sought neither heaven nor earth-sought
naught,

Nor meant to think; but ran mean time through vast

Of visionary things, fairer than aught

That was; and saw the distant tops of thoughts,
Which men of common stature never saw,
Greater than aught that largest worlds could hold,
Or give idea of to those who read.

3 He entered into Nature's holy place,
Her inner chamber, and beheld her face
Unvailed; and heard unutterable things,
And incommunicable visions saw;
Things then unutterable, and visions then
Of incommunicable glory bright;

But by the lips of after ages formed

To words, or by their pencil pictured forth;
Who, entering further in, beheld again,
And heard unspeakable and marvelous things,
Which other ages, in their turn, revealed,
And left to others greater wonders still.

EXERCISE XCV.

1. BA'-RON Cu'-VIER, the most eminent naturalist of modern timan was born at Montbeliard, in the duchy of Wirtemberg, in 1769. 2. BI-MANE, (BI, two, and MANE, hand,) having two hands.

MAN.

KIRBY.

1. After traversing the whole Animal Kingdom, from its very lowest grades, and having arrived at MAN, who confessedly stands at the head, and is the only visible king and lord of all the rest, it will be expected that I should devote a few pages to the world's master.

2. Baron Cuvier,' with great propriety, places him by himself in a separate order, distinguished from that which succeeds it, in his system, by the significant appellation of Bimane,* indicating that his two hands are the instruments by which he subdues and governs the planet that he inhabits; by which, also, he is enabled to embody his conceptions, and, as it were, to convert his thoughts into material substances.

3. I shall consider him both physically and metaphysically; physically as to his actual position, and as to his action upon