It whispered of his own bright isle, Had something of the sea-waves' moan! His mother's cabin-home, that lay Oh! scorn him not !—the strength, whereby The unconquerable power, which fills These have one fountain deep and clear— THE BOAST OF KNOWLEDGE. MAURICE CLEMENT was at this time on a visit to Hollycot. He had been at many different schools, and was lately sent to that which George Herbert attended. He was sure that he must know a great deal more than the Hollycot children; for he was thirteen, and had been at fashionable schools, and much in London. His young cousins were very desirous to amuse and please him while he staid with them, but they had not yet succeeded. "Come and look at Bewick's birds Mr Dodsley has lent us," said Charles, "or George will play at chess with you, I am sure; or if you would look at our series of kings and queens, or dissected maps." 66 I don't care for baby amusements," said Maurice. "But Mr Dodsley says any thing is better than listlessness," said Sophia. "When Captain Harding came to visit mamma, he romped famously with little Henry, and gave Charles good help in rigging his first frigate." "I am not listless, cousin Sophia, only I have done my theme, and have nothing to do more to-night." "Has Maurice nothing to learn, nothing to teach, nothing to amuse himself or his friends. with?" asked Mrs Herbert. “No, Ma'am ; I have done my theme, and I have read every book, and looked at every picture, and know every thing in this room." "It is not large, to be sure," said Mrs Herbert ; twenty feet by sixteen. "just But how many wonders do these four walls enclose, my dear Maurice !" The drawing-room, play-room, and general sittingroom of the family, though not spacious, contained many useful, and a few ornamental and curious things. There was a cabinet with books belonging to the children, and another with books of their mother's. There was also a small cabinet of natural history. There were globes, a few books of prints, some plaster casts, a few plants, Sophia's piano-forte, and a timepiece on the chimney-shelf, with some foreign curiosities; there was also a prism and a microscope. It was a light, pleasant room, looking over the orchard-trees, and across the meadows to the villagechurch rising below a wooded hill. "And you know every thing within the room. Maurice ?" said Mrs Herhoo "I assure you, Manrio tooked rather sheepish. Mamma, Maurice knows a very great deal from his catechism. He knows about the barometer and what thunder is, and how the people of England are governed, and a hundred things. But pray, Maurice," added George, "tell us what thunder is ?" "The explosion of lightning, just like the report of a cannon, with the echoes between the clouds and the earth." "An "And the barometer?" inquired Mrs Herbert. instrument for ascertaining the weight of the atmosphere in inches of mercury." "But how?" cried Charles. "I would like to know what does the weight of the atmosphere mean ?” "I am sure, Ma'am," said Maurice, appealing to his aunt, "I have given the right answer. I have repeated it to my father a hundred times." "I trust Mr Clement was instructed, though we are not," said George, in a tone which drew on him his mother's glance; but ere that reproving glance fell, he had said, "Favour us now, Maurice, with an account of the manner in which the people of England are governed.” "By laws made and powers enacted by the legislature," said Maurice, looking round in triumph. Sophia gazed, Charles stared, and George smiled outright. "So I suppose there is nothing in this room, indeed, that you don't know, Maurice ?" "I think not, George." 66 Suppose you tell Sophia," said Mrs Herbert, "why the lid of that tea-urn James has just now placed on the table is forced up and shaken,-why the smoke comes hissing up from it ?” 66 "It is quite simple that, Aunt,—just steam or vapour.” True, but there is no steam in the water of the pump with which the urn is filled." "It is the boiling; the heat, Ma'am, I suppose, makes it." "Answered like a catechism," said Mrs Herbert, " but still, how, in what manner,-by what sort of strange process-does heat convert pump-water into vapour?" Maurice looked rather disconcerted. "This, then, is one thing within this small room which you do not yet know, Maurice. Think you n there no more wonders around you ?” "I daresay not, Ma'am," replied Maurice, looking cautiously round. "I am pretty sure I know all besides." "Ah! don't you be too sure, Cousin," said Charles with good-natured earnestness. "Then tell us, Maurice, why the wind is whistling in passing through the key-hole of that closet-door. You do not know. This little room contains wonders, the result of powers and principles in nature and in art, that to describe would fill volumes, my dear nephew. Can you tell us how this piece of honeycomb on the table is formed? Why the quicksilver mounts and falls in yonder weather-glass? Why or how the fagots James has placed on the fire crackle so? Why or how that fly crawls along the wall; and how yonder other fly can creep, back downmost, along the ceiling up there?" 66 No, Aunt," said Maurice, rather ashamed of his boast of universal knowledge. "Would you be astonished to learn that the self-same cause, which makes the wind whistle through the key-hole, enables that fly to creep along on the ceiling, forces up the lid of my urn and of Sally's pot, sets in motion some of the steam-engines you have seen at work, and performs far more seeming, and indeed real wonders, than I can enumerate." "We must read and learn, Mamma," said Charles; "where may we read of this?" "There are some things we must see to understand, Charles, at least to understand clearly. Perhaps you are too young this year to comprehend all this; but if a week hence you still wish to try, tell me, and I shall request Mr Dodsley to be so kind as to show you some experiments on AIR.” Abridged from "Diversions of Hollycot." THE ANT AND THE CATERPILLAR. As an Ant, of his talents superiorly vain, Ere long the proud Ant, as repassing the road, Whose vesture, in glory, a monarch's excell'd; The Ant, quite amazed at a figure so gay, CUNNINGHAM. ป EXERCISES ON WORDS OCCURRING IN SECTION IV. PREFIXES. A, implies privation. A, ab, or abs, means from. Post, after. Retro, backward. Se, aside or apart. The marks of Divine contrivance are every where visible throughout creation. An atheist is not merely an indevout and undiscerning man; he is a monster. Withhold not thy hand from doing good; but abstain from every evil way. One sin leads to others. Sins are like circles in the water when a stone is thrown in, one produces another. To trifle with any of God's laws is awfully perilous. One leak may sink a vessel; -one spark may explode a fortress ;-one lust may damn the soul. Never postpone till to-morrow what you can do to-day. To-morrow belongs not to you, but to posterity; and, even should you be spared to behold it, you are likely to be still more averse to doing an irksome duty then than you are now. Often take a retrospect of your past lives. This will show you the temptations before which you are most liable to fall, and the virtues which it is most incumbent on you to cultivate. He who never deduces a lesson from the past, has little chance of acting wisely for the future. The road to life is a narrow way; and he who is determined to walk in it must stand prepared to encounter many trials, and to resist many temptations. He must never for a moment become retrograde; he must never secede from the path; he must never concede any thing to his evil inclinations. Abstinence from the very appearance of evil is necessary in order to insure uninterrupted progress. "I was never reduced," says the author of the Persian fables, "into the sin of repining on account of the vicissitudes of life, except once, when I was not able to buy myself shoes. I went bare-footed, and sore at heart, into a mosque at Damascus. I saw a person there who had no legs; I immediately abstained from my complaints, and offered up my thanksgiving to the great God, and was patient at having no shoes," |