HEATH. Where the wild bee comes with a murmuring song, List'ning the freeborn eagle's cry, The echoes yet the notes prolong, When one, who oft o'er hill and dell, Loveliest children of earth, Of more than each rainbow hue, And fragrance found only in you! Oh! that like you I could live, That each thought and each pulse I could give Until earth shall wax cold and decay, You shall ever triumphantly shine, And on leaf and on petal display The work of an artist divine.' SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY beau'-ti-fy, to make beautiful out-do', to beat, to excel di-ver'-sion, amusement foil, a thing used to set off another My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has beautified the inside of his church with several texts of his own choosing. He has likewise given a handsome pulpit-cloth, and railed in the communion table at his own expense. He has often told me that at his coming to his estate he found his parishioners very irregular; and that, in order to make them kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a Common Prayerbook; and at the same time employed an itinerant singing master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the psalms, upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed outdo most of the country churches that I have ever heard. As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides himself; for if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him; and if he sees anybody else nodding, either wakes them himself or sends his servants to them. Several other of the old knight's peculiarities break out upon these occasions. Sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing psalms half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he is pleased with the matter of his devotion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the same prayer, and sometimes stands up when everybody else is upon his knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his tenants are missing. I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend, in the midst of the service, calling out to one John Matthews to mind what he was about, and not disturb the congregation. This John Matthews, it seems, is remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at that time was kicking his heels for his diversion. This authority of the knight, though exerted in that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstances of life, has a very good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his behaviour; besides that, the general good sense and worthiness of his character make his friends observe these little singularities as foils that rather set off than blemish his good qualities. As soon as the sermon is finished nobody presumes to stir till Sir Roger is gone out of the church. The knight walks down from his seat in the chancel between a double row of his tenants, that stand bowing to him on each side; and every now and then enquires how such a one's wife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not see at church; which is understood as a secret reprimand to the person that is absent. Addison. COMPOUND MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION. THE TOAD'S JOURNAL. jour'-nal, a daily account man'-sion, a large house con-ceal'-ed, hidden hi-e-ro-glyph'-ics, pictures used cramp, a sudden contraction of the doze (v.), to slumber In a land for antiquities greatly renowned, A toad, from whose journal it plainly appears The roll, which this reptile's long history records, The sense, by obscure hieroglyphics concealed, 'Crawled forth from some rubbish, and winked with one eye; Half opened the other, but could not tell why; Awakened-felt chilly--crept under a stone; Pulled hard-then dozed, as I found 'twas no use;- : In the pleasant moist shade of a strawberry bed. Was fretful at first, and then a few tears.'- MORAL. It seems that life is all a void, Perhaps you'd spend a thousand so: Jane Taylor. *The above piece was written in reference to the statement of Belzoni, the celebrated Eastern traveller, that he found a live toad during one of his excavations in Egypt, which, according to him, must have been embedded in the solid rock several thousand years. |