CLOUDS.

METHOUGHT among the lawns together

We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn,
And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds

Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains,
Shepherded by the slow unwilling wind.

Shelley, Prometheus Unbound.

MOONLIT CLOUDS.

Low on the utmost boundary of the sight,
The rising vapours catch the silver light;
Thence fancy measures, as they parting fly,
Which first will throw its shadow on the eye,
Passing the source of light; and thence away,
Succeeded quick by brighter still than they.
For yet above these wafted clouds are seen
(In a remoter sky, still more serene)
Others, detached in ranges through the air,
Spotless as snow, and countless as they're fair;
Scattered immensely wide from east to west,
The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest.
These, to the raptured mind, aloud proclaim
Their mighty Shepherd's everlasting name.

COLOURS.

Bloomfield, Winter.

AMONG the several kinds of beauty, the eye takes most delight in colours. We nowhere meet with a more glorious or pleasing show in Nature than what appears in the heavens at the rising and setting of the sun, which is wholly made up of those different stains of light that show themselves in clouds of a different situation. For this reason we find the poets, who are always addressing themselves to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colours than from any other topic. Addison, Spectator, No. 412.

COLOURS.

How marvellous to be absorbed in a colour only as mere colour ! How is it that the far bright blue of heaven awakens our longing-that we are moved by the purple lines of evening-calmed and consoled by a golden yellow? Whence the indefinable rapture of the fresh green, of which the eye can never imbibe enough to quench its thirst?

PRISMATIC COLOURS.

Of parent colours.

-THE gorgeous train
First the flaming Red

Sprang vivid forth; the tawny Orange next ;
And next delicious Yellow; by whose side
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing Green;
Then the pure Blue, that swells autumnal skies,
Ethereal played; and then, of sadder hue
Emerged the deepened Indigo, as when
The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost ;
While the last gleaming of refracted light
Died in the fainting Violet away.

Tieck.

Thomson, Lines to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton.

COMMERCE.

NATURE seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to the mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another, and be united by their common interest. Almost every degree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes; the infusion of a China plant, sweetened with the pith of an

Indian cane, The Philippine Islands give a flavour to our European bowls. The single dress of a woman of quality is often the product of a hundred climates. The muff and the fan come together from the opposite ends of the earth. The scarf is sent from the torrid zone, and the tippet from beneath the pole. The brocade petticoat rises out of the mines of Peru, and the diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan. Addison, Spectator, No. 69.

COMMERCE.

EACH climate needs what other climes produce,
And offers something to the general use;
No land but listens to the common call,
And in return, receives supply from all.
This genial intercourse and mutual aid
Cheers what were else an universal shade,
Calls Nature from her ivy-mantled den,
And softens human rockwork into men.
Heaven speed the canvas gallantly unfurled
To furnish and accommodate a world,
To give the pole the produce of the sun,
And knit the unsocial climates into one.

COMMERCE.

Cowper, Charity.

A WELL-REGULATED commerce is not, like law, physic, or divinity, to be overstocked with hands; but, on the contrary, flourishes by multitudes, and gives employment to all its professors. Fleets of merchantmen are so many squadrons of floating shops, that vend our wares and manufactures in all the markets of the world, and find out chapmen under both the tropics.. Addison, Spectator, No. 21.

COMPANIONS.

THOSE persons who gain the hearts of most people, who are chosen the companions of their softer hours, and their

reliefs from anxiety and care, are seldom persons of shining qualities, or strong virtues: it is rather the soft green of the soul on which we rest our eyes, that are fatigued with beholding more glaring objects.

Edmund Burke, Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful.

CONFIDANTS.

THERE is no mark of confidence taken more kindly by a friend, than the entrusting him with a secret, nor any which he is so likely to abuse. Confidants, in general, are like crazy firelocks, which are no sooner charged and cocked, than the spring gives way, and the report immediately follows. Happy to have been thought worthy the confidence of one friend, they are impatient to manifest their importance to another; till between them and their friend, and their friend's friend, the whole matter is presently known to 'all our friends round the Wrekin.' Cowper, Connoiseur, No. 119.

CONSCIENCE.

A GOOD Conscience is a port which is land-locked on every side, and where no winds can possibly invade, no tempests can arise. There a man may stand upon the shore, and not only see his own image, but that of his Maker, clearly reflected from the undisturbed and silent waters. Dryden, Dedication of the Georgics.

CONSCIENCE.

A PALSY may as well shake an oak, or a fever dry up a fountain, as either of them shake, dry up, or impair the delight of conscience: for it lies within, it centres in the heart, it grows into the very substance of the soul, so that it accompanies a man to his grave; he never outlives it, and that for this cause only, because he cannot outlive himself. South, Sermons, i.

CONSCIENCE.

YET still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through gain's silence, and o'er glory's din ;
Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod,

Man's conscience is the oracle of God.

Byron, The Island.

CONSCIENCE.

THERE is a great difference in sins, and in actions, whether truly or seemingly offensive. There are gnats, and there are camels; neither is there less difference in consciences. There are consciences so wide and vast, that they can swallow a camel; and there are consciences so strait, as that they strain at a gnat. And what is still more strange, those very consciences which one while are so dilated that they strain not at a camel, another while are so drawn together by an anxious scrupulousness, that they are ready to be choked with a gnat. Bishop Hall, Soliloquies.

CONSCIENCE.

CONSCIENCE is a riddle I don't know what to make of; 'tis sometimes pride, 'tis sometimes obstinacy, 'tis sometimes interest, 'tis sometimes nothing; like a skittish jade, it will startle at a windmill, and stand buff to a cannon; it will keck at pap, and digest steel.

Tom Brown, New Maxims of Conversation.

CORPORATE CONSCIENCE.

THERE is no corporate conscience. Men who act in bodies, it matters not whether large or small, mobs, senates, or cabinets, will without hesitation take their share in measures which if proposed to any one of them as an individual, would make him reply with the Syrian, 'Am I a dog, that I should do this thing?' Southey, Colloquies.