without meat as they now are to eat rye bread; that sanitary police and medical discoveries may have added several more years to the average length of human life; that numerous comforts and luxuries which are now unknown, or confined to a few, may be within the reach of every diligent and thrifty working man. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that the increase of wealth and the progress of science have benefited the few at the expense of the many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as the time when England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendour of the rich.

SCORN NOT THE SONNET.

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

CORN not the Sonnet; critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakspeare unlocked his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; Camöens soothed with it an exile's grief; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned

His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand

The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US.

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

HE world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers; Little we see in nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be

A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

MILTON.

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

TILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour; England hath need of thee; she is a fen Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea; Pure as the naked heavens-majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

SILENCE.

BY THOMAS HOOD.

HERE is a silence where hath been no sound

There is a silence where no sound may be,

In the cold grave — under the deep, deep sea,

Or in wide desert where no life is found,

Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;

No voice is hush'd-no life treads silently,

But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,

That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyæna, calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

FANCY IN NUBIBUS; OR, THE POET IN THE CLOUDS.

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

H! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,

Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,

To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold

"Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land!

Or, listening to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand, By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

GOD'S POWER AND PROVIDENCE ILLUSTRATED IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

BOOK OF JOB, CHAP. XXXIX.

NOWEST thou the time when the wild goats of

the rock bring forth? or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? Canst thou number the months that they fulfil? or knowest thou the time when they bring forth? They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows. Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up with corn; they go forth, and return not unto them.

Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing.

Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed and gather it into thy barn?