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so does he that lends to such people, when he | such tyranny, when you run in debt for such

goes to get it in again. Poor Dick further advises and says,

"Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse;

Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse.' And again, Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more saucy.' When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more, that your appearance may be all of a piece; but Poor Dick says, 'It is easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.' And it is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the frog to swell in order to equal the ox.

"Vessels large may venture more,

But little boats should keep near shore.'

It is, however, a folly soon punished; for as Poor Richard says, 'Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt. Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy.' And, after all, of what use is this pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much is suffered? It cannot promote health nor ease pain; it makes no increase of merit in the person; it creates envy; it hastens misfortune.

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But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities? We are offered, by the terms of this sale, six months' credit; and that, perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot spare the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But, ah! think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and, by degrees, come to lose your veracity, and sink into base, downright lying; for The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt,' as Poor Richard says; and again, to the same purpose, Lying rides upon Debt's back;' whereas a free-born Englishman ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any man living. But poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.'

"What would you think of that prince, or of that government, who should issue an edict forbidding you to dress like a gentleman or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude? Would you not say that you were free, have a right to dress as you please, and that such an edict would be a breach of your privileges, and such a government tyrannical? And yet you are about to put yourself under

dress! Your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to deprive you of your liberty, by confining you in jail till you shall be able to pay him. When you have got your bargain, you may, perhaps, think little of payment; but, as poor Richard says, 'Creditors have better memories than debtors; creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times.' The day comes round before you are aware, and the demand is made before you are prepared to satisfy it; or, if you bear your debt in mind, the term, which at first seemed so long, will, as it lessens, appear extremely short. Time will seem to have added wings to his heels as well as his shoulders. Those have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter.' At present, perhaps, you may think yourselves in thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance without injury; but

"For age and want save while you may;

No morning sun lasts a whole day.'

Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain; and 'It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel,' as Poor Richard says; so, Rather go to bed supperless, than rise in debt.'

"Get what you can, and what you get hold;

'Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold.' And, when you have got the Philosopher's Stone, sure you will no longer complain of bad times or the difficulty of paying taxes.

"IV. This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom; but, after all, do not depend too much upon your own industry, and frugality, and prudence, though excellent things; for they may all be blasted, without the blessing of Heaven; and, therefore, ask that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember, Job suffered and was afterwards prosperous.

"And now, to conclude, 'Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other,' as Poor Richard says, and scarce in that; for, it is true, 'We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.' However, remember this, 'They that will not be counselled, cannot be helped;' and further, that, 'If you will not hear Reason, she will surely rap your knuckles,' as Poor Richard says.'

Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it and approved the doctrine; and immediately practised the contrary, just

as if it had been a common sermon; for the auction opened and they began to buy extravagantly. I found the good man had thoroughly studied my Almanacs, and digested all I had dropped on these topics during the course of twenty-five years. The frequent mention he made of me must have tired any one else; but my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it, though I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own, which he had ascribed to me, but rather the gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and nations. However, I resolved to be the better for the echo of it; and, though I had at first determined to buy stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be as great as mine. I am, as ever, thine to serve thee,-RICHARD SAUNDERS.

A GRECIAN EDEN.

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

It is an isle under Ionian skies,
Beautiful as a wreck of paradise;

And, for the harbours are not safe and good,
This land would have remained a solitude,
But for some pastoral people native there,
Who from the elysian, clear, and golden air
Draw the last spirit of the age of gold;
Simple and spirited, innocent and bold.
The blue Egean girds this chosen home,
With ever-changing sound, and light, and foam,
Kissing the sifted sands and caverns hoar;
And all the winds, wandering along the shore,
Undulate with the undulating tide.

There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide;
And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond,
As clear as elemental diamond;

And all the place is peopled with sweet airs.
The light clear element which the isle wears
Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers,
Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers,
And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep;
And from the moss violets and jonquils peep,
And dart their arrowy odour through the brain,
Till you might faint with that delicious pain.
And every motion, odour, beam, and tone,
With that deep music is in unison
Which is a soul within the soul:-they seem
Like echoes of an antenatal dream.
It is a favour'd place. Famine or blight,
Pestilence, war, and earthquake never light
Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they
Sail onward far upon their fatal way.

The winged storms, chanting their thunder-psalm

To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

BY S. T. COLERIDGE.

No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
Distinguishes the west, no long thin slip
Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues.

Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge!

You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
But hear no murmuring: it flows silently
O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still;
A balmy night! and though the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.
And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
"Most musical, most melancholy" bird!
A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy.

But some night-wandering man, whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,

Or slow distemper, or neglected love

(And so, poor wretch! filled all things with himself And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale

Of his own sorrow)-he, and such as he,
First named these notes a melancholy strain.
And many a poet echoes the conceit;
Poet who hath been building up the rhyme
When he had better far have stretched his limbs
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,

By sun or moon-light, to the influxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
And of his fame forgetful! So his fame
Should share in Nature's immortality,
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
Be loved like Nature! But 'twill not be so;
And youths and maidens most poetical,
Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still,
Full of meek sympathy, must heave their sighs
O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.

My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learned
A different lore: we may not thus profane
Nature's sweet voices, always full of love
And joyance! 'Tis the merry nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburden his full soul
Of all its music!

And I know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,
Which the great lord inhabits not; and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,

Thin grass and king-cups, grow within the paths;
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many nightingales; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,
They answer and provoke each other's songs,
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical, and swift jug jug,
And one, low piping, sounds more sweet than all,
Stirring the air with such an harmony,

That should you close your eyes, you might almo t
Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
Whose dewy leafits are but half-disclosed,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,
Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade
Lights up her love-torch.

A most gentle maid,

Who dwelleth in her hospitable home Hard by the castle, and at latest eve (Even like a lady vowed and dedicate

To something more than Nature in the grove)

Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
Familiar with these songs, that with the night
He may associate joy! Once more farewell,
Sweet Nightingale! Once more, my friends, farewell!

TO A SENSITIVE YOUNG LADY.

FROM AN OLD WOMAN.

[Justus Moser, born at Osnabrück, 1720; died 8th January, 1794. He studied law at Jena and Göttingen, and held various important appointments under gov ernment. His short essays upon social subjects, and his zeal for the improvement of the condition of the poor, obtained for him the title of the Franklin of Germany ]

You do your husband injustice, dear child, if you think he loves you less than formerly. He is a man of an ardent, active temper, who loves labour and exertion, and finds his pleasure in them; and as long as his love for you furnished him with labour and exertion he was completely absorbed in it. But this has, of course, ceased; your reciprocal position-but

Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes, by no means his love, as you imagine-has

That gentle maid! and oft a moment's space,
What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,
Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon
Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky
With one sensation, and these wakeful birds
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if one quick and sudden gale had swept
An hundred airy harps! And she bath watched
Many a nightingale perch giddily,

On bloss'my twig still swinging from the breeze,
And to that motion tune his wanton song
Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.

Farewell, O warbler! till to morrow eve,
And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!
We have been loitering long and pleasantly,
And now for our dear homes.-That strain again?
Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe,
Who, capable of no articulate sound,
Mars all things with his imitative lisp,
How he would place his hand beside his ear,
His little hand, the small forefinger up,
And bid us listen! And I deem it wise

To make him Nature's playmate. He knows well
The evening-star; and once, when he awoke
In most distressful mood (some inward pain
Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream),
I hurried with him to our orchard plot,
And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once,
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
While his fair eyes, that swam with undropp'd tears,
Did glitter in the yellow moonbeam! Well!-
It is a father's tale: but if that Heaven

changed.

A love which seeks to conquer, and a love which has conquered, are two totally different passions. The one puts on the stretch all the virtues of the hero; it excites in him fear, hope, desire; it leads him from triumph to triumph, and makes him think every foot of ground that he gains a kingdom. Hence it keeps alive and fosters all the active powers of the man who abandons himself to it. The happy husband cannot appear like the lover; he has not like him to fear, to hope, and to desire; he has no longer that charming toil, with all its triumphs, which he had before, nor can that which he has already won be a conquest.

You have only, my dear child, to attend to this most natural and inevitable difference, and you will see in the whole conduct of your husband, who now finds more pleasure in business than in your smiles, nothing to offend you. You wish-do you not?-that he would still sit with you alone on the mossy bank in front of the grotto, as he used to do, look in your blue eyes, and kneel to kiss your pretty hand. You wish that he would paint to you, in livelier colours than ever, those delights of love which lovers know how to describe with so much art and passion; that he would lead your imagination from one rapture to another. My wishes, at least for the first year after I married my husband, went to nothing short of this. But it will not do; the best husband is also the

most useful and active member of society; and when love no longer demands toil and trouble, when every triumph is a mere repetition of the last, when success has lost something of its value, along with its novelty, the taste for activity no longer finds its appropriate food, and turns to fresh objects of pursuit. The necessity for occupation and for progress is of the very essence of our souls; and if our husbands are guided by reason in the choice of occupation, we ought not to pout because they do not sit with us so often as formerly, by the silver brook or under the beech-tree. At first I too found it hard to endure the change. But my husband talked to me about it with perfect frankness and sincerity. "The joy with which you receive me," said he, "does not conceal your vexation, and your saddened eye tries in vain to assume a cheerful look; I see what you want that I would sit as I used to do on the mossy bank, hang on all your steps, and live on your breath; but this is impossible. I would bring you down from the top of the church-steeple on a rope-ladder, at the peril of my life, if I could obtain you in no other way; but now, as I have you fast in my arms, as all dangers are passed and all obstacles overcome, my passion can no longer find satisfaction in that way. What has once been sacrificed to my self-love ceases to be a sacrifice. The spirit of invention, discovery, and conquest, inherent in man, demands a new career. Before I obtained you I used all the virtues I possessed as steps by which to reach you; but now, as I have you, I place you at the top of them, and you are the highest step from which I now hope to ascend higher."

whether political or literary; I recommend books to him, and lay them before him; I carry on the correspondence with our married children, and often delight him with good news of them and our little grandchildren. As to his accounts, I understand them as well as he, and make them easier to him by having mind of all the yearly outlay which passes through my hands, ready and in order; if necessary, I can send in a statement to the treasury chamber, and my hand makes as good a figure in our cash-book as his; we are accustomed to the same order, we know the spirit of all our affairs and duties, and we have one aim and one rule in all our undertakings.

This would never have been the case if we had played the part of tender lovers after marriage as well as before, and had exhausted our energies in asseverations of mutual love. We should perhaps have regarded each other with ennui, and have soon found the grotto too damp, the evening air too cool, the noontide too hot, the morning fatiguing. We should have longed for visitors, who when they came would not have been amused, and would have impatiently awaited the hour of departure, or, if we went to them, would have wished us away. Spoiled by effeminate trifling, we should have wanted to continue to trifle, and to share in pleasures we could not enjoy; or have been compelled to find refuge at the card-table-the last place at which the old can figure with the young.

Do you wish not to fall into this state, my dear child? Follow my example, and do not torment yourself and your excellent husband with unreasonable exactions. Don't think, however, that I have entirely renounced the

tunities for this present themselves far more frequently to those who do not seek, but seem to avoid them, than to those who allow themselves to be found on the mossy bank at all times, and as often as it pleases their lord and master.

Little as I relished the notion of the church-pleasure of seeing mine at my feet. Oppor tower, or the honour of serving as the highest step under my husband's feet, time and reflection on the course of human affairs convinced me that the thing could not be otherwise. I therefore turned my active mind, which would perhaps in time have been tired of the mossy bank, to the domestic business which came within my department; and when we had both been busy and bustling in our several ways, and could tell each other in the evening what we had been doing, he in the fields, and I in the house or the garden, we were often more happy and contented than the most loving couple in the world.

And, what is best of all, this pleasure has not left us after thirty years of marriage. We talk with as much animation as ever of our domestic affairs; I have learned to know all my husband's tastes, and I relate to him whatever I think likely to please him out of journals,

I still sometimes sing to my little grandchildren, when they come to see me, a song which, in the days when his love had still to contend with all sorts of obstacles, used to throw him into raptures; and when the little ones cry, "Ancora! ancora! grandmamma," his eyes fill with tears of joy. I asked him once whether he would not now think it too dangerous to bring me down a rope-ladder from the top of the church-steeple, upon which he called out as vehemently as the children, "O, ancora! grandmamma, ancora!"

P.S.-One thing, my dear child, I forgot. It seems to me that you trust too entirely to

your good cause and your good heart (perhaps, too, a little to your blue eyes), and do not deign to try to attract your husband anew.

I fancy you are at home, just as you were a week ago, in society, at our excellent G-'s, where I found you as stiff and silent as if you had met only to tire each other to death. Did you not observe how soon I set the whole company in motion? This was merely by a few words addressed to each on the subject I thought most agreeable or most flattering to him. After a time the others began to feel more happy and at their ease, and we parted in high spirits and good humour.

What I did there I do daily at home. I try to make myself and all around me agreeable. It will not do to leave a man to himself till he comes to you, to take no pains to attract him, or to appear before him with a long face. But it is not so difficult as you think, dear child,

to behave to a husband so that he shall remain for ever in some measure a lover. I am an old woman, but you can still do what you like; a word from you at the right time will not fail of its effect. What need have you to play the suffering virtue? The tear of a loving girl, says an old book, is like a dew-drop on the rose; but that on the cheek of a wife is a drop of poison to her husband. Try to appear cheerful and contented, and your husband will be so; and when you have made him happy, you will become so, not in appearance, but in reality.

The skill required is not so great. Nothing flatters a man so much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it. As soon as you are cheerful you will be lively and alert, and every moment will afford you an opportunity of letting fall an agreeable word. Your education, which gives you an immense advantage, will greatly assist you; and your sensibility will become the noblest gift that nature has bestowed on you, when it shows itself in affectionate assiduity, and stamps on every action a soft, kind, and tender character, instead of wasting itself in secret repinings.

PLEASURE AND PAIN. Venomous thorns that are so sharp and keen, Bear flowers we see, full fresh and fair of hue; Poison is also put in medicine,

And unto man his health doth oft renew; The fire that all things eke consumeth clean,

May hurt and heal: then if that this be true, I trust sometime my harm may be my health, Since every woe is joined with some wealth.

SIR THOMAS WYAT (1503-1541).

OH, OPEN THE DOOR.

BY ROBERT BURNS.

Oh, open the door, some pity to show,
Oh, open the door to me, Oh!
Tho' thou hast been false, I'll ever prove true,
Oh, open the door to me, Oh!

Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek,
The frost that freezes the life at my heart,
But caulder thy love for me, Oh!
Is nought to my pains frae thee, Oh!

The wan moon is setting behind the white wave,

False friends, false love, farewell! for mair
And time is setting with me, Oh!
I'll ne'er trouble them, nor thee, Oh!

She has open'd the door, she has open'd it wide;
She sees his pale corse on the plain, Oh!
My true love! she cried, and sank down by his side,
Never to rise again, Oh!

LORD GREGORY.

BY ROBERT BURNS.

O mirk, mirk is the midnight hour,
And loud the tempest's roar;
A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tow',
Lord Gregory, ope thy door!

An exile frae her father's ha',
And a' for loving thee;
At least some pity on me shaw,
If love it may not be.

Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove,
By bonnie Irwine side,

Where first I own'd that virgin-love
I lang, lang had denied?

How aften didst thou pledge and vow
Thou wad for aye be mine;
And my fond heart, itsel' sae true,
It ne'er mistrusted thine.

Hard is thy heart, Lord Gregory,
And flinty is thy breast-
Thou dart of heav'n that flashest by,
O wilt thou give me rest!

Ye mustering thunders from above, Your willing victim see!

But spare, and pardon my false love, His wrangs to Heaven and me!

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