AND if there be whose tender frames have drooped

Even to the dust; apparently through weight

Of anguish unrelieved, and lack of power

An agonizing sorrow to transmute;

Deem not that proof is here of hope withheld
When wanted most, a confidence impaired
So pitiably that having ceased to see
With bodily eyes, they are borne down by love
Of what is lost, and perish thro' regret.
Oh no, the innocent sufferer often sees
Too clearly; feels too vividly; and longs
To realize the vision with intense

And over constant yearning; there-there lies
The excess, by which the balance is destroyed.
Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh,
This vital warmth too cold, these vital orbs,
Though inconceivably endowed, too dim
For any passion of the soul that leads
To extasy; and all the crooked paths

Of time and change disdaining, takes its course
Along the line of limitless desires.

VIRTUE Conld see to do what virtue would

Wordsworth.

By her own radiant light, tho' sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude;

Where with her best nurse, contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings
That in the various bustle of resort

Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd.
He that hath light within his own clear breast

May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun,
Himself is his own dungeon.

Milton

I HAVE always been of opinion that virtue sinks deepest into the heart of man when it comes recommended by the powerful charms of poetry. The most active principle in our minds is the imagination; to it a good poet makes his court perpetually, and by this faculty takes care to gain it first. Our passions and inclinations come over next, and our reason surrenders itself with pleasure in the end. Thus the whole soul is betrayed into morality, by bribing the fancy with beautiful and agreeable images of those very things that in the books of the philosophers appear austere, and have, at the best, a kind of forbidden aspect. In a word, the poets do as it were, strew the rough paths of virtue so full of flowers, that we are not sensible of the uneasiness of them, and imagine ourselves in the midst of pleasures, and the most bewitching allurements, at the time we are making a progress in the severest duties of life.

All men agree that licentious poems do of all writings soonest corrupt the heart; and why should we not be as persuaded, that the grave and serious performances of such as write in the most engaging manner, by a kind of divine

impulse, must be the most effective persuasives

to good?

Tatler.

MAN is all symmetry;

Full of proportions, one limb to another,
And to all the world besides,

Each part may call the farthest brother,
For head with foot hath private amity,
And both with moons and tides.

Nothing hath got so far

But man hath caught and kept it as his prey;
His eyes dismount the highest star,

He is in little all the sphere.

Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Find their acquaintance there.

For us the winds do blow,

The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow.
Nothing we see but means our good,

As our delight was our treasure;

The whole is either our cupboard of food

Or cabinet of pleasure.

The stars have us to bed;

Night draws the curtain which the sun withdraws,

Music and light attend our head.

All things unto our flesh are kind

In their descent and being; to our mind

In their ascent and cause.

More servants wait on man

Than he'll take notice of. In every path

He treads down that which doth befriend him
When sickness makes him pale and wan.
Oh! mighty love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.

George Herbert.

"Tis often thus, that whilst we linger here,
When earthly hopes and energies are low-
When life's weak current scarcely seems to flow,
We feel another blessed world more near,
And dwell encircled by its gentle sphere;

Breathe its pure spirit-catch its fervid glow,
Hail its exalted glories as they show

More of heaven's high revealings, bright and clear!

Oh, thou great Source of light, of love of all
The pure emotions of the human breast!
Is this the rainbow promise of the soul,-
The eschal grape from realms divinely blest?
Immortal glories, borne on mercy's wings
To gild life's shadow, cheer its fainting springs.
Intellectual Repository.

GRIEF hallows hearts, even while it ages heads.

Festus.

IF thou be one whose heart the holy forms

Of young imagination have kept pure,

Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride, Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,

Is littleness; that he who feels contempt

For any living thing hath faculties

Which he has never used; that thought with him

Is in its infancy. The man whose eye

Is ever on himself doth look on one

The least of nature's works, one who might move
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds
Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, thou!

Instructed that true knowledge leads to love:
True dignity abides with him alone

Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,
Can still suspect, and still revere himself
In lowliness of heart.

Wordsworth.

IF man would learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind the eyes, and light, which experience gives us, is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us. Coleridge.

PRESERVE self-possession, and do not be talked out of conviction.

Bishop Middleton.

THE longest time that man may live,

The lapse of generations of his race,
The continent entire of time itself,
Bears not proportion to eternity;

Huge as a fraction of a grain of dew,

Comeasured with the broad unbounded ocean!
There is the time of man-his proper time,
Looking at which, this life is but a gust,
A puff of breath, that's scarcely felt ere gone!

Sheridan Knowles.