622. PEACE AND WAR CONTRASTed. The morality of peaceful times-is directly opposite to the maxims of war. The fundamental rule of the first is-to do good; of the latter, to inflict injuries. The former-commands us to succor the oppressed; the latter to overwhelm the defenceless. The former teaches men to love their enemies; the latter, to make themselves terrible to strangers. Away, away, without a wing, The rules of morality-will not suffer us to promote the dearest interest, by falsehood; the maxims of war applaud it, when employed in the destruction of others. That a familiarity with such maxims, must tend to hardenbe the case, until ideas of contempt-are assothe heart, as well as to pervert the moral sentiments, is too obvious to need illustration. The natural consequence of their prevalence is an unfeeling, and unprincipled ambition, with an idolatry of talents, and a contempt of virtue; whence the esteem of mankind is turned from the humble, the beneficent, and the good, to men who are qualified, by a genius, fertile in expedients, a courage, that is never appalled, and a heart, that never pities, to become the destroyers of the earth. Forgetting-what it was to die.-Byron. GENUINE TASTE. To the eye of taste, each season of the year has its peculiar beauties; nor does the venerable oak, when fringed with the hoary ornaments of winter, atlord a prospect, less various, or delightful, than, when decked in the most luxuriant foliage. Is, then, the winter of life-connected with no associa tions, but those of horror? This can never ciated with ideas of wisdom, and experience; associations, which the cultivation of trué taste-would effectually prevent. Suppose the person, who wishes to improve on nature's plan, should apply to the artificial florist to deck the bare boughs of his spreading oak with ever-blooming roses; would it not be soon discovered, that, in deserting nature, he had deserted taste? It should be remembered, that the coloring of nature, whether in the animate, or inanimate creation, never fails to harmonize with the object; that her most beauti 624. GAMBLER'S WIFE. While the philanthropist is devising means to mitigate the evils, and augment the happi-ful hues are often transient, and excite a more ness of the world, a fellow-worker together lively emotion from that very circumstance. with God, in exploring, and giving effect to the benevolent tendencies of nature; the warrior-is revolving, in the gloomy recesses of his capacious mind, plans of future devastation and ruin. Prisons, crowded with captives; cities, emptied of their inhabitants; fields, desolate and waste, are among his proudest trophies. The fabric of his fame is cemented with tears and blood; and if his name is wafted to the ends of the earth, it is in the shrill cry of suffering humanity; in the curses and imprecations of those whom his sword has reduced to despair. 623. IMMORTAL MIND. When coldness-wraps this suffering clay, Ah, whither-strays the immortal mind? It cannot die, it cannot stay, But leaves its darkened dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace, By steps, each planet's heavenly way? A thought unseen, but seeing all, In one broad glance-the soul beholds, Before creation peopled earth, Its eye shall roll-through chaos back; Above all love, hope, hate, or fear, Dark is the night! How dark! No light! No fire! Oh, God! protect my child!" The clock strikes three. Dread silence reign'd around :-the clock struck four!-Coates. Goodness-is only greatness in itself, It rests not on externals, nor its worth Derives-from gorgeous pomp, or glittering pelf, Or chance of arms, or accident of birth; It lays its foundations in the soul, And piles a tower of virtue to the skies, Around whose pinnacle-majestic-roll The clouds of GLORY, starr'd with angel eyes. 625. DARKNESS. I had a dream, which was not all a dream. And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, Even of their mutual hideousness they died, are affected with delightful sensations, when THE WILDERNESS OF MIND. Than groves of fir-on Huron's shore; Of India's tiger-haunted wood; By EDUCATION unrefin❜d- But constant, he were perfect; that one error- sins; thus unsought, unpremeditated, unprepar'd!” But the truth is, there is no more a miracle in it, than there is in the towering of the preeminent forest-tree, or in the flowing of the mighty, and irresistible river, or in the wealth, and waving of the boundless harvest.-Dewey. 628. THE THREE BLACK CROWS. Two honest tradesmen-meeting in the Strand, 627. GENIUS. The favorite idea of a genius among us, is of one, who never studies, or who studies nobody can tell when; at midnight, or at odd times, and intervals, and now and then strikes out, "at a heat," as the phrase is, some wonderful production. This is a character that has figured largely in the history of our literature, in the person of our Fieldings, our Savages, and our Steeles; "loose fellows about town, or loungers in the country," who slept in ale-houses, and wrote in bar-rooms; who took up the pen as a maAbout the crows!"-"I don't know what it is," gician's wand, to supply their wants, and, Replied his friend.-"No! I'm surprised at that; when the pressure of necessity was relieved, Where I come from it is the common chat: resorted again to their carousals. Your real But you shall hear: an odd affair indeed! genius is an idle, irregular, vagabond sort of And that it happened, they are all agreed: personage; who muses in the fields, or dreams Not to detain you from a thing so strange, by the fireside; whose strong impulses-that is the cant of it-must needs hurry him into A gentleman, that lives not far from 'Change, wild irregularities, or foolish eccentricity; This week, in short, as all the alley knows, who abhors order, and can bear no restraint, Taking a puke, has thrown up three black crows." and eschews all labor; such a one as Newton "Impossible!"-"Nay, but its really true, or Milton! What! they must have been ir- I had it from good hands, and so may you." regular, else they were no geniuses. "The "From whose, I pray?" So, having named the man, young man," it is often said, "has genius enough, if he would only study." Now, the Straight to inquire his curious comrade ran. truth is, as I shall take the liberty to state it, "Sir, did you tell "-relating the affair-that the genius will study; it is that in the "Yes, sir, I did; and if its worth your care, mind which does study: that is the very na- Ask Mr. Such-a-one, he told it me; ture of it. I care not to say, that it will al- But, by the by, 'twas two black crows, not three." ways use books. All study is not reading, Resolved to trace so wondrous an event, any more than all reading is study. Whip to the third, the virtuoso went. Attention it is, though other qualities belong to this transcendent power,-attention it is, that is the very soul of genius; not the fixed eye, not the poring over a book, but the fixed thought. It is, in fact, an action of the mind, which is steadily concentrated upon one idea, or one series of ideas, which collects, in one point, the rays of the soul, till they search, penetrate, and fire the whole train of its thoughts. And while the fire burns within, the outside may be indeed cold, indifferent, negligent, absent in appearance; he may be an idler, or a wanderer, apparently without aim, or intent; but still the fire burns within. And what though "it bursts forth," at length, as has been said, "like volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force?" It only shows the intense action of the elements beneath. What though it breaks forth-like lightning from the cloud? The electric fire had been collecting in the firmament, through many a silent, clear, and calm day. What though the might of genius appears in one decisive blow, struck in some moment of high debate, or at the crisis of a nation's peril! That mighty energy, though it may have heaved in the breast of Demosthenes, was once a feeble infant thought. A mother's eye watched over its dawnings. A father's care guarded its early youth. It soon trod, with youthful steps, the halls of learning, and found other fathers to wake, and to watch for it, even as it finds them here. It went on; but silence was upon its path, and the deep strugglings of the inward soul silently ministered to it. The elements around breathed upon it, and "touched it to finer issues." The golden ray of heaven fell upon it, and ripened its expanding faculties. The slow revolutions of years slowly added to its collected energies and treasures; till, in its hour of glory, it stood forth imbodied in the form of living, commanding, irresistible eloquence. The world wonders at the manifestation, and says, "Strange, strange, that it should come [fact, «Sir," and so forth-"Why, yes; the thing's a diffuse useful information, to farther intellec- How soon-time-flies away! yet, as I watch it, 629. PERRY'S VICTORY. Were anything | And those, forsaken of God, and to themselves givwanting, to perpetuate the fame of this vic- The prudent shunned him, and his house, [en up. tory, it would be sufficiently memorable, from As one, who had a deadly moral plague; the scene where it was fought. This war has And fain all would have shunned him, at the day been distinguished, by new and peculiar characteristics. Naval warfare has been carried Of judgment; but in vain. All, who gave ear, into the exterior of a continent, and navies, With greediness, or, wittingly, their tongues as if by magic, launched from among the Made herald to his lies, around him wailed; depths of the forest! The bosom of peace- While on his face, thrown back by injured men, ful lakes, which, but a short time since, were In characters of ever-blushing shame, scarcely navigated by man, except to be Appeared ten thousand slanders, all his own. skimmed by the light canoe of the savage, have all at once been ploughed by hostile ships. The vast silence, that had reigned, for ages, on these mighty waters, was broken by the thunder of artillery, and the affrighted savage stared, with amazement, from his covert, at the sudden apparition of a seafight, amid the solitudes of the wilderness. The peal of war has once sounded on that lake, but probably, will never sound again. The last roar of cannon, that died along her shores, was the expiring note of British domination. Those vast, eternal seas will, perhaps, never again be the separating space, between contending nations; but will be em-rant himself, was excited to the highest pitch, bosomed-within a mighty empire; and this victory, which decided their fate, will stand unrivalled, and alone, deriving lustre, and perpetuity, from its singleness. In future times, when the shores of Erie shall hum with a busy population; when towns, and cities, shall brighten, where now, extend the dark tangled forest; when ports shall spread their arms, and lofty barks shall ride, where now the canoe is fastened to the stake; when the present age shall have grown into venerable antiquity, and the mists of fable begin to gather round its history, then, will the inhabitants of Canada look back to this battle we record, as one of the romantic achievements of the days of yore. It will stand first on the page of their local legends, and in the marvellous tales of the borders. The fisherman, as he loiters along the beach, will point to some half-buried cannon, corroded with the rust of time, and will speak of ocean warriors, that came from the shores of the Atlantic; while the boatman, as he trims his sail to the breeze, will chant, in rude ditties, the name of Perry, the early hero of Lake Erie.-Irving. THE SLANDERER. 'Twas Slander, filled her mouth, with lying words, 630. TRUE FRIENDSHIP. Damon and Pythias, of the Pythagorean sect in philosophy, lived in the time of Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily. Their mutual friendship was so strong, that they were ready to die for one another. One of the two, (for it is not known which,) being condemned to death, by the tyrant, obtained leave to go into his own country, to settle his affairs, on condition, that the other should consent to be imprisoned in his stead, and put to death for him, if he did not return, before the day of execution. The attention of every one, and especially of the ty as every body was curious, to see what would be the event of so strange an affair. When the time was almost elapsed, and he who was gone did not appear; the rashness of the other, whose sanguine friendship had put him upon running so seemingly desperate a haz ard, was universally blamed. But he still declared, that he had not the least shadow of doubt in his mind, of his friend's fidelity. The event showed how well he knew him. He came in due time, and surrendered himself to that fate, which he had no reason to think he should escape; and which he did not desire to escape, by leaving his friend to suffer in his place. Such fidelity softened, even the savage heart of Dionysius himself. He pardoned the condemned; he gave the two friends to one another, and begged that they would take himself in for a third. THE CORAL GROVE. Deep-in the wave, is a coral grove, And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow; Their bows, where the tides and billows flow; For the winds and the waves are absent there, The sea-flag streams through the silent water, The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea; Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, 631. BRUTUS' HARANGUE ON CESAR'S | Dioptrics, optics, katoptrics, carbon, Chlorine, and iodine, and aerostatics; None! then none--have I offended. I have done no more to Cesar, than you should do to Brutus. The question of his death-is enrolled in the capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death. Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony; who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as, which of you shall not?-With this I depart that as I slew my best lover-for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death. 632. ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG LADY. As Chinese, Portuguese, or German; and Was quite familiar in Low Dutch and Spanish, Is "Love, still love," had oft till midnight tried 633. CHARITY. Though I speak-with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity-suffereth long, and is kind; charity--envieth not; charity-vaunteth not itself; it is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity-never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there That Wallack looked extremely well in Rolla; be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we She fell in love, as all the ladies do, With Mr. Simpson-talked as loudly, too, As any beauty of the highest grade, To the gay circle in the box beside her; And though by no means a "Bas bleu," she had And Dr. Chalmers sermons, of a Sunday; [gundi. know, in part, and we prophecy, in part. But, when that which is perfect, is come, then that, which is in part, shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now, we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face to face: now, I know in part; but then, shall I know, even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.-St Paul. EARLY RISING AND PRAYER. When first thy eyes unvail, give thy soul leave |