VI.

THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE.

BEATTIE.

AH! who can tell how hard it is to climb

The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?
Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime
Has felt the influence of malignant star,
And waged with Fortune an eternal war?
Checked by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown,
And Poverty's unconquerable bar,

In Life's low vale remote has pined alone,
Then dropped into the grave, unpitied and unknown!

VII.

ANTIQUITY.

COLTON.

IT has been observed, that a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant will see farther than the giant himself; and the moderns, standing as they do on the vantageground of former discoveries, and uniting all the fruits of the experience of their forefathers with their own actual observation, may be admitted to enjoy a more enlarged and comprehensive view of things than the ancients themselves; for that alone is true antiquity which embraces the antiquity of the world, and not that which would refer us back to a period when the world was young. But by whom is true antiquity enjoyed? Not by the ancients who did live in the infancy, but by the moderns who do live in the maturity of things.

VIII.

BEAUTY.

SHAKSPEARE.

1. BEAUTY is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining glass that fadeth suddenly,
A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud,
A brittle glass that's broken presently;
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, faded, broken, dead, within an hour.

2. And as good lost is seld or never found,

As fading gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie withered on the ground,

As broken glass no cement can redress,
So Beauty, blemished once, forever's lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.

IX.

CUNNING AND DISCRETION.

ADDISON.

1. CUNNING has only private, selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon. Cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance. Discretion, the more it is discovered, gives a greater authority to the person who possesses it. Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life.

2. Cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interest and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understand

ings. Cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them. In short, cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men, in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.

X.

PROCRASTINATION.

PERSIUS.

Cor. UNHAPPY he who does his work adjourn, And to to-morrow would the search delay:

His lazy morrow will be like to-day.

Pers. But is one day of ease too much to borrow'?

Cor. Yes, sure; for yesterday was once to-morrow;

That yesterday is gone, and nothing gained:

And all thy fruitless days will thus be drained;
For thou hast more to-morrows yet to ask,

And wilt be ever to begin thy task;

Who, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, art cursed

Still to be near, but ne'er to reach, the first.

LESSON CXL.

'PAN' TO MIME, an actor who expresses his meaning by mute action, or gesticulation only, without speaking; a dumb show. It here means a silent exhibition of Nature.

1.

(p.)

ALL NATURE SPEAKS OF A SPIRIT-WORLD.

EARD

HEA

ye

ANON.

H. As soft it murmured by,

the whisper of the breeze,

Amid the shadowy forest-trees'?

It tells, with meaning sigh,

Of the bowers of bliss on that viewless shore,
Where the weary spirit shall sin no more;

2. While sweet and low in crystal streams

That glitter in the shade,

The music of an angel's dreams

On bubbling keys are played;

And their echoes breathe, with a mystic tone,
Of that home where the loved and the lost are gone.

3. And when, at evening's silent hour,

We stand on the ocean's shore, And feel the soul-subduing power

Of its mysterious roar,

There's a deep voice comes from its pearly caves,

Of that land of peace which no ocean laves.

4. And while the shadowy vale of night
Sleeps on the mountain-side,

And brilliants of unfathomed light
Begem the concave wide,

There's a spell, a power, of harmonious love,
That is beckoning mute to the realms above.

5. And Earth, in all her temples wild
Of mountain, rock, and dell,
Speaks with maternal accents mild,
Our doubting fears to quell,

Of another shore, and a brighter sphere,

Where we haste on the wings of each flying year.

6. On Nature's bright and pictured scroll,

A speaking language see:

A pantomime the seasons roll,

Of glorious imagery,

That reveal a life in this fading clay,

That shall wake again to a brighter day.

1.

LESSON CXLI.

"HOW MANIFOLD ARE THY WORKS!"

0

MISS A. ARNOLD.

THOU, in whose almighty hand
The earth's foundations firmly stand,
And heaving oceans rise and fall!
Thee, the Creator, man shall fear,
So manifold Thy works appear!

In wisdom hast Thou made them all.

2. The heavens are Thine-stars speak Thy praise, Point with a thousand trembling rays

The pathway where Thy feet have trod!
They roll along the deep blue arch,
And seem in their eternal march
The glittering armies of our God!

3. How grand the ever-drifting clouds!
How beautiful those snowy shrouds

That float along 'twixt earth and heaven!
And yet how fearful in their wrath,
When lurid lightnings mark their path,
And they by tempest-winds are driven !

4. But when Thy hand hath hushed the storm, And thrown the sunbeams, bright and warm, Upon the tearful earth again,

How like an emblem of Thy love

The bright-hued rainbow bends above,

And spans the misty vail of rain!