to be old, without either wrinkles or gray hairs; privileging him with the experience of age, without either the infirmities or inconveniences thereof. Yea, it not only maketh things past present, but enableth one to make a rational conjecture of things to come. For this world affordeth no new accidents, but in the same sense wherein we call it 'a new moon,' which is the old one in another shape, and yet no other than what had been formerly. Old actions return again, furbished over with some new and different circumstances.

Fuller.

HISTORY.

I HAVE ever delighted in reading the history of ages past, which draws together into a narrow compass the great occurrences and events that are but thinly sown in those tracts of time which lie within our own knowledge and observation. When I see the life of a great man, who has deserved well of his country, after having struggled through all the oppositions of prejudice and envy, breaking out with lustre, and shining forth in all the splendour of success, I close my book, and am a happy man for a whole evening.

Addison, Tatler, No. 117.

HISTORY.

It is the most agreeable talent of an historian to be able to draw up his armies and fight his battles in proper expressions, to set before our eyes the divisions, cabals, and jealousies of great men, to lead us step by step into the several actions and events of his history. We love to see the subject unfolding itself by just degrees, and breaking upon us insensibly, that so we may be kept in a pleasing suspense, and have time given us to raise our expectations, and to side with one of the parties concerned in the relation. I confess this shows more the art than the veracity of the historian; but I am only to speak of him as he is qualified

to please the imagination; and in this respect Livy has, perhaps, excelled all who went before him, or have written since his time. He describes every thing in so lively a manner, that his whole history is an admirable picture, and touches on such proper circumstances in every story, that his reader becomes a kind of spectator, and feels in himself all the variety of passions which are correspondent to the several parts of the relations. Addison, Spectator, No. 420.

HOME.

THERE is something so seducing in that spot in which we first had existence, that nothing but it can please. Whatever vicissitudes we experience in life, however we toil, or wheresoever we wander, our fatigued wishes still recur to home for tranquillity: we long to die in that spot which gave us birth, and in that pleasing expectation opiate every calamity. Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, letter ciii.

HOME.

THERE'S a strange something, which without a brain
Fools feel, and which e'en wise men can't explain,
Planted in man, to bind him to that earth,

In dearest ties, from whence he drew his birth.

HOME.

Churchill, The Farewell.

THIS fond attachment to the well-known place
Whence first we started into life's long race,
Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway,
We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day.

HOME.

Cowper, Tirocinium.

THERE is a magic in that little word:
It is a mystic circle that surrounds

Comforts and virtues never known beyond
Its hallowed limits.

Southey, Hymn to the Penates.

HOME.

THERE is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside;
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons emparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valour, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth;
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air;

In every clime the magnet of his soul,

Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole;
For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace,
The heritage of nature's noblest race,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest,
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend.
Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,
Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of life.
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,
An angel-guard of loves and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.

Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?
Art thou a man ?—a patriot ?-look around;
O, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home.

James Montgomery, The West Indies.

HOME.

WITH his ice, and snow, and rime,
Let bleak Winter sternly come :
There is not a sunnier clime

Than the love-lit winter home.

Alaric A. Watts.

HOME.

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my

childhood,

When fond recollection presents them to view: The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild wood, And every loved spot which my infancy knew.

Saml. Woodworth.

HOME.

It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow. Washington Irving, Sketch Book.

HOPE.

WITH him went Hope in rank, a handsome maid,

Of cheerful look and lovely to behold;

In silken samite she was light arrayed,

And her fair locks were woven up in gold;
She always smiled, and in her hand did hold
An holy-water sprinkle, dipt in dew,

With which she sprinkled favours manifold.
On whom she list, and did great liking shew:
Great liking unto many, but true love to few.

Spenser, Faerie Queene, b. iii. c. xii. 13.

HOPE.

HOPE is Fear's brother, but more gaily clad,
The merrier fool o' the two, yet quite as mad.

Cowley, Against Hope.

HOPE.

HOPE rules a land for ever green;

All powers that serve the bright-eyed queen
Are confident and gay;

Clouds at her bidding disappear;

Points she at aught ?-the bliss draws near,

And fancy smoothes the way.

HOPE.

THE dream of a future, happier hour,
That alights on Misery's brow,
Springs out of the silvery almond-flower
That blooms on a leafless bough.

IDOLATRY.

Wordsworth.

Moore, Lalla Rookh.

BUT then for religion; what prodigious, monstrous, misshapen births has the reason of fallen man produced!

It is now almost six thousand years, that far the greatest part of the world has had no religion but Idolatry, and Idolatry certainly is the first-born of Folly, the great and leading paradox, nay, the very abridgement and sum total of all absurdities. For is it not strange that a rational man should worship an ox, nay, the image of an ox? that he should fawn upon his dog? bow himself before a cat? adore leeks and garlic, and shed penitential tears at the smell of a deified. onion? Yet so did the Egyptians, once the famed masters of all arts and learning. And to go a little further, we have yet a stranger instance in Isaiah xliv. 14: 'A man hews him down a tree in the wood, and part of it he burns,' in verse 16; and in verse 17, 'with the residue thereof he maketh a god.' With one part he furnishes his chimney, with the other his chapel. A strange thing, that the fire must consume this part, and then burn incense to that; as if there was more