5. 6. 7. With youthful smiles, descends toward the grave Like a coy maiden, Ease, when courted most, For the unscented fictions of the loom; I admire, And throws Italian light on English walls: But imitative strokes can do no more Than please the eye,-sweet Nature's every ser se The cheering fragrance of her dewy vales, Beneath the open sky she spreads the feast; His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue; He walks, he leaps, he runs,—is winged with joy, EXERCISE XV. 1 SA'-TYR, in Grecian mythology, a sort of inferior deity, or demi. god, represented as a monster, half a man and half goat, having short horns on the head, the body covered with hair, and the feet and tail of a goat. 2. PE'-RI, among the Persians, was an elf or fairy, fancied to be a descendant of fallen angels, and awaiting only the termination of the penance enjoined, to return to the bliss of Paradise. 3. MUF'-TI, among the Mohammedans, is an official interpreter of Mohammedan law. Every large town contains at least one; the one residing at Constantinople being, in some sense, over all the rest. AN EASTERN APOLOGUE. 1. Abdallah sat at his morning meal, when there alighted on the rim of his goblet a little fly. It sipped an atom of sirup and was gone. But it came next morning, and the next, and the next again, till at last the scholar noticed it. Not quite a common fly, it seemed to know that it was beau tiful, and it soon grew very bold. And, lo! a great wonder: it became daily larger, and yet larger, till there could be discerned in the size, as of a locust, the appearance as of a man. From a handbreadth it reached the stature of a cubit; ard still, so winning were its ways, that it found more and more favor with this son of infatuation. It frisked like a Satyr,' and it sang like a Peri,' and like a moth of the evening it danced on the ceiling, and, like the king's gift, withersoever it turned, it prospered. 2. The eyes of the simple one were blinded, so that he could not in all this perceive the subtilty of an evil gin. Therefore the lying spirit waxed bolder and yet bolder, and whatsoever his soul desired of dainty meats, he freely took; and when the scholar waxed wroth, and said: This is my daily portion from the table of the Mufti; there is not enough for thee and me," the dog-faced deceiver played some pleasant trick, and caused the silly one to smile. Until, in process of time, the scholar perceived that, as his guest grew stronger and stronger, he himself waxed weaker and weaker. 3. Now, also, there arose frequent strife betwixt the demon and his dupe, and at last the youth smote the fiend so sore, that he departed for a season. And, when he was gone, Abdallah rejoiced and said: "I have triumphed over mine enemy, and whatsoever time it pleaseth me, I shall smite him so that he die. Is he not altogether in mine own power?" But after not many days the gin came back again, and this time he was arrayed in goodly garments, and he brought a present in his hand, and he spake of the days of their first friendship, and he looked so mild and feeble, that his smooth words wrought upon this dove without a heart, and saying: "Is he not a little one?" he received him again into his chamber. 4. On the morrow, when Abdallah came not into the as sembly of studious youth, the Mufti said: "Wherefore tarrieth the son of Abdul? Perchance, he sleepeth." Therefore they repaired even to his chamber; but to their knocking he made no answer. Wherefore, the Mufti opened the door, and, lo! there lay on the divan the dead body of his disciple. Ilis visage was black and swollen, and on his throat was the pressure of a finger, broader than the palm of a mighty man. All the stuff, the gold, and the changes of raiment belonging to the hapless one, were gone, and in the soft earth of the gar den were seen the footsteps of a giant. The mufti measured one of the prints, and, behold! it was six cubits lung. 5. Reader, canst thou expound the riddle? Is it the Bottle, of the Betting-book? Is it the Billiard-table or the Theater? Is it Smoking? Is it Láziness? Is it Novel-reading? But know that an evil habit is an elf constantly expanding. It may come in at the key-hole, but it will soon grow too big for the house. Know, also, that no evil habit can take the life of your soul, unless you yourself nourish it, and cherish it, and by feeding it with your own vitality, give it a strength greater than your own. EXERCISE XVI. LIVE NOT TO YOURSELF. REV. JOHN TODD. 1. On a frail little stem in the garden hangs the opening rose. Go ask why it hangs there! "I hang there," says the beautiful flower, "to sweeten the air which man breathes, to open my beauties, to kindle emotion in his eye, to show him the hand of his God, who penciled each leaf, and laid them thus on my bosom. And, whether you find me here to greet him every morning, or whether you find me on the lone mountainside, with the bare possibility that he will throw me one passing glance, my end is the same. I live not to myself." 2. Beside yon highway stands an aged tree, solitary and alone. You see no living thing near it, and you say, surely that must stand for itself alone. 66 'No;" says the tree, "God never made me for a purpose so small. For more than a hundred years I have stood here. In summer, I have spread out my arms, and sheltered the panting flocks which hastened to my shade; in my bosom I have concealed and protected the brood of young birds, as they lay and rocked in their nests; in the storm I have more than once received in my body the lightning's bolt, which had else destroyed the trav eler; the acorns which I have matured from year to year, have been carried far and wide, and groves of forest oaks can claim me as their parent. 3. "I have lived for the eagle which has perched on my top; for the humming-bird, that has paused and refreshed its giddy wings ere it danced away again like a blossom of the air; for the insect that has found a home within the folds of my bark; and, when I can stand no longer, I shall fall by the hand of man, and I will go to strengthen the ship which makes him lord of the ocean, and to his dwelling, to warm his hearth and cheer his home. I live not to myself." 4. On yonder mountain-side comes down the silver brook, in the distance resembling a ribbon of silver, running and leaping as it dashes joyously and fearlessly down. Go ask the leaper what it is doing. "I was born," says the brook, "high up the mountain; but there I could do no good; and so I am hurrying down, running where I can, and leaping where I must, but hastening down to water the sweet valley, where the thirsty cattle may drink, where the lark may sing on my margin, where I may drive the mill for the accommo dation of man, and then widen into the great river, and bear up his steamboats and shipping, and finally plunge into the ocean, to rise again in vapor, and perhaps come back again, in the clouds, to my own native mountain, and live my short life over again. Not a drop of water comes down my channel, in whose bright face you may not read, 'None of us liveth to himself." 5. Speak now to that solitary star that hangs in the far verge of heaven, and ask the bright sparkler what it is doing there? Its voice comes down the path of light, and cries: "I am a mighty world! I was stationed here at the creation. was among the morning stars that sang together, and among the sons of God that shouted for joy, at the creation of the earth. Aye, I was there— I "When the radiant morn of creation broke, And the empty realms of darkness and death Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath, |