O'erveiled with vines,

She glows and shines

Among her future oils and wines.

11. Her children, hid

The cliffs amid,

Are gamboling with the gamboling kid;
Or down the walls,

With tipsy calls,

Laugh on the rocks like water-falls.

12.

The fisher's child,

13.

14.

15.

With tresses wild,

Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled,

With glowing lips,

Sings as she skips,

Or gazes at the far-off ships.

Yon deep bark goes

Where Traffic blows,

From lands of sun to lands of snows;

This happier one,

Its course is run,

From lands of snow to lands of sun.

Oh, happy ship!

To rise and dip,

With the blue crystal at your lip!

Oh, happy crew!

My heart with you

Sails, and sails, and sings anew!

No more, no more

The worldly shore

Upbraids me with its loud uproar!

With dreamful eyes,

My spirit lies

Under the walls of Paradise!

T, B. Read.

LXVI.-WIT AND HUMOR.

WIT was originally a general name for all the

intellectual powers, meaning the faculty which kens, perceives, knows, understands; it was gradually narrowed in its signification to express merely the resemblance between ideas; and, lastly, to note that resemblance when it occasioned ludicrous surprise. It marries ideas lying widely apart by a sudden jerk of the understanding. Humor originally meant moisture, a signification it metaphorically retains; for it is the very juice of the mind, oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertilizing wherever it falls.

2. Wit exists by antipathy; humor, by sympathy. Wit laughs at things; humor laughs with them. Wit lashes external appearances, or cunningly exaggerates single foibles into character; humor glides into the heart of its object, looks lovingly on the infirmities it detects, and represents the whole man. Wit is abrupt, darting, scornful, and tosses its analogies in your face; humor is slow and shy, insinuating its fun into your heart. Wit is negative, analytical, distinctive; humor is creative.

3. The couplets of Pope are witty; but Sancho Panza is a humorous creation. Wit, when earnest, has the earnestness of passion, seeking to destroy; humor has the earnestness of affection, and would

lift up what is seemingly low into our charity and love. Wit, bright, rapid, and blasting as the lightning, flashes, strikes, and vanishes in an instant; humor, warm and all-embracing as the sunshine, bathes its objects in a genial and abiding light.

4. Wit implies hatred or contempt of folly and crime; produces its effects by brisk shocks of surprise; uses the whip of scorpions and the brandingiron-stabs, stings, pinches, tortures, goads, teases, corrodes, undermines; humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic, and the true, by whose light it surveys and shapes their opposites. It is a humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence, promoting tolerant views of life, bridging over the spaces which separate the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble. E. P. Whipple.

LXVII. THE HERITAGE.

HE rich man's son inherits lands

THE

And piles of brick, and stone, and gold,

And he inherits soft white hands,

And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old;

A heritage, it seems to me,

One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

2. The rich man's son inherits cares;

The bank may break, the factory burn,
A breath may burst his bubble shares,
And soft, white hands could hardly earn
A living that would serve his turn;

A heritage, it seems to me,

One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

3. The rich man's son inherits wants,

His stomach craves for dainty fare;
With sated heart, he hears the pants

Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare,
And wearies in his easy-chair;

A heritage, it seems to me,

One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

4. What doth the poor man's son inherit?
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,
A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;
King of two hands, he does his part
In every useful toil and art;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.

5. What doth the poor man's son inherit?
Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things,
A rank adjudged by toil-won merit,
Content that from employment springs,
A heart that in his labor sings;

A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.

6. What doth the poor man's son inherit?
A patience learned of being poor,
Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it,
A fellow-feeling, that is sure

To make the outcast bless his door;

A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.

7. Oh, rich man's son! there is a toil
That with all others level stands;
Large charity doth never soil,

But only whitens, soft white hands,-
This is the best crop from thy lands;
A heritage, it seems to me,

Worth being rich to hold in fee.

8. Oh, poor man's son! scorn not thy state; There is worse weariness than thine,

In merely being rich and great;

Toil only makes the soul to shine,
And makes rest fragrant and benign;
A heritage, it seems to me,

Worth being poor to hold in fee.

9. Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last;

Both, children of the same dear God,
Prove title to your heirship vast
By record of a well-filled past;

A heritage, it seems to me,

Well worth a life to hold in fee. J. R. Lowell.

EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION.

1. And he inherits soft white hands.

2. A heritage one scarce would wish to hold in fee.

3. With sated heart he hears the pants of toiling hinds with brown arms bare.

4. Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, a hardy frame, a hardier spirit.

5. There is worse weariness than thine.

6. And makes rest fragrant and benign.