Breathe perfumes exquisite. Expect it not,
Ye who till noon upon a down-bed lie,
Indulging feverish sleep, or, wakeful, dream
Of happiness no mortal heart has felt,
But in the regions of romance'. Ye fair,
Like you
it must be wooed or never won,
And, being lost, it is in vain ye ask
For milk of roses and Olympian dew.
Cosmetic art no tincture can afford,
The faded features to restore: no chain,
Be it of gold, and strong as adamant,
Can fetter beauty to the fair one's will.

LESSON XXIV.

A summer morning.-THOMSON.

THE meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint gleaming in the dappled east:
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the lustre of her face,

White break the clouds away. With quickened step,
Brown Night retires: Young Day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.

The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top,
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare

Limps awkward: while along the forest glade
The wild deer trip, and often, turning, gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes

The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
Rous'd by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves
His mossy cottage, where with Peace he dwells:
And from the crowded fold, in order, drives
His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn.
Falsely luxurious, will not Man awake;
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,
To meditation due and sacred song?

For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half

The fleeting moments of too short a life;
Total extinction of the enlightened soul!
Or else to feverish vanity alive,

Wildered, and tossing through distempered dreams?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than Nature craves; when every Muse,
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?
But yonder comes the powerful King of Day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo, now, apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colored air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad,
And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams
High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, Light!

Of all material beings first, and best!

Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe !
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun!
Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen
Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?
'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force,
As with a chain indissoluble bound,
Thy system rolls entire; from the far bourn
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round
Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk
Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.
Informer of the planetary train!

Without whose quickening glance their cumbous orbs
Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,
And not, as now, the green abodes of life;
How many forms of being wait on thee,
Inhaling spirit, from the unfettered mind,
By thee sublimed, down to the daily race,
The mixing myriads of thy setting beam.
The vegetable world is also thine,
Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede
That waits thy throne, as through thy vast domain
Annual, along the bright ecliptic road,

In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime.

Mean-time the expecting nations, circled gay
With all the various tribes of foodful earth,
Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up

A common hymn; while, round thy beaming car,
High-seen, the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance
Harmonious knit, the rosy-fingered Hours,
The Zephyrs floating loose, the timely Rains,
Of bloom ethereal, the light-footed Dews,
And, softened into joy, the surly Storms.
These, in successive turn, with lavish hand,
Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,
Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch,
From land to land is flushed the vernal year.

LESSON XXV.

Importance of Literature.-LORD LYTTLETON.

CADMUS AND HERCULES.

Hercules.

Do you pretend to sit as high on Olympus as Hercu les? Did you kill the Nemæ'an lion, the Erymanthian boar, the Lernean serpent, and Stymphalian birds? Did you destroy tyrants and robbers? You value yourself greatly on subduing one serpent: I did as much as that while I lay in my cradle.

Cadmus. It is not on account of the serpent, that I boast myself a greater benefactor to Greece than you. Actions should be valued by their utility, rather than their splendor. I taught Greece the art of writing, to which laws owe their precision and permanency. You (subdued monsters; I civilized men. It is from untamed passions, not from wild beasts, that the greatest evils arise to human society. By wisdom, by art, by the united strength of a civil community, men have been enabled to subdue the whole race of lions, bears, and serpents; and, what is more, to bind by laws and wholesome regulations, the (ferocious violence and dangerous treachery of the human disposition. Had lions been destroyed only in single combat,* men had had but a bad time of it; and what, but laws, couldawe) the men who killed the lions? The(genuine) glory, the proper distinction of the rational species, arises from the perfection

Pron. kum'-bat.

of the mental powers. Courage is apt to be fierce, and strength is often exerted in acts of oppression: but wisdom is the associate of justice. It assists her to form equal laws, to pursue right measures, to correct power, protect weakness, and to unite individuals in a common interest and general welfare. Heroes may kill tyrants, but it is wisdom and laws that prevent tyranny and oppression. The operations of policy far surpass the labors of Hercules, preventing many evils which valor and might cannot even redress. You heroes regard nothing but glory; and scarcely consider whether the conquests, which raise your fame, are really beneficial to your country. Unhappy are the people who are governed by valor not directed by prudence, and not mitigated by the gentle arts!

Hercules. I do not expect to find an admirer of my strenuous life, in the man who taught his countrymen to sit still and read; and to lose the hours of youth and action in idle speculation and the sport of words.

Cadmus. An ambition to have a place in the registers of fame, is the Eurystheus which imposes heroic labors on mankind. The Muses incite to action, as well as entertain the hours of repose; and I think you should honor them for presenting to heroes so noble a recreation, as may prevent their taking up the distaff, when they lay down the club.

Hercules. Wits as well as heroes can take up the distaff. What think you of their thin-spun systems of philosophy, or lascivious poems, or Milesian fables? Nay, what is still worse, are there not panegyrics* on tyrants, and books that blaspheme the gods, and perplex the natural sense of right and wrong? I believe if Eurystheus were to set me to work again, he would find me a worse task than any he imposed; he would make me read over a great library; and I would serve it as I did the Hydra, I would burn as I went on, that one chimera might not rise from another, to plague mankind. I should have valued myself more on clearing the library, than on cleansing the Augean stables.

Cadmus. It is in those libraries only that the memory of your labor exists. The heroes of Marathon, the patriots of Thermopyla, owe their fame to me. All the wise insti

tutions of lawgivers, and all the doctrines of sages, had per ished in the ear, like a dream related, if letters had not preserved them. O Hercules! it is not for the man who preferred Virtue to Pleasure, to be an enemy to the Muses.

* Pron. pǎn-në-jër’-riks.

Let Sardanapalus and the silken sons of luxury, who have wasted life in ingloricus ease, despise the records of action, which bear no honorable testimony to their lives: but true merit, heroic virtue, should respect the sacred source of lasting honor.

Hercules. Indeed, if writers employed themselves only in recording the acts of great men, much might be said in their favor. But why do they trouble people with their meditations? Can it be of any consequence to the world what an idle man has been thinking?

Cadmus. Yes it may. The most important and extensive advantages mankind enjoy, are greatly owing to men who have never quitted their closets. To them mankind are obliged for the facility and security of navigation. The invention of the compass has opened to them new worlds. The knowledge of the mechanical powers has enabled them' to construct such wonderful machines, as perform what the united labor of millions, by the severest drudgery, could not accomplish. Agriculture too, the most useful of arts, has received its share of improvement from the same source. Poetry, likewise, is of excellent use, to enable the memory to retain with more ease, and to imprint with more energy upon the heart, precepts and examples of virtue. From the little root of a few letters, science has spread its branches over all nature, and raised its head to the heavens. Some philosophers have entered so far into the counsels of Divine Wisdom, as to explain much of the great operations of nature. The dimensions and distances of the planets, the causes of their revolutions, the path of comets, and the ebbing and flowing of tides, are understood and explained. Can any thing raise the glory of the human species more, than to see a little creature, inhabiting a small spot, amidst innumerable worlds, taking a survey of the universe, comprehending its arrangement, and entering into the scheme of that wonderful connexion and correspondence of things so remote, and which it seems a great exertion of Omnipotence to have established? What a volume of wisdom, what a noble theology, do these discoveries open to us! While some superior geniuses have soared to these sublime subjects, other sagacious and diligent minds have been inquiring into the most minute works of the Infinite Artificer: the same care, the same providence, is exerted through the whole; and we should learn from it, that, to true wisdom, utility and fitness appear perfection, and whatever is beneficial is noble.