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was changed into wrath; when the arm, which had never supported, was raised to destroy.

Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now scantily supplied with provisions; crowded almost to suffocation in their illstored prison; delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route, and now driven in fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves.

The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The labouring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, shivering weight, against the staggered vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, weak and weary from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore,-without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes.

Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes, enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventurers of other times, and find the parallel of this..

Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children; was it hard labour and spare meals; was it disease; was it the tomahawk; was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise,

and a broken heart, aching in its last moments at the recollection of the loved and left beyond the sea; was it some, or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible, that, from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?

LESSON CXV.

Miseries of Book-Lending.-ANONYMOUS.

THE miseries of book-making, and of book-selling, and sometimes of book-buying, are well known, and frequently lamented; but those of book-lending are a source of sufferings perhaps equally severe; and the lamentations excited by them, though not loud, are deep. I will trespass upon the time and patience of you and your readers, to attend to a few only of the miseries endured upon this interesting subject.

Your friend begs the favour just to borrow a small volume, which you have, and he does not wish to buy himself. After having expected the return of it, at due intervals, for a space of time, which, without calculation, you know to be much beyond a year; and after feeling considerable terrours, least your emigrated duodecimo should have been naturalized in the library, or family school-room, where it has so long resided; to be reduced, at length, to the delicate and formidable task of constructing a hint at once so gentle as not to offend, and yet so broad as to bring back your book.-The foregoing hint given, but not taken.

An acquaintance, not remarkable for the powers of reminiscence, keeps your book time enough to alarm or incommode you. By not merely broad hints, but by explicit and repeated expositions of the state of the case, and of your wishes, you oblige him to recollect that he has in his possession a book which belongs, not to him, but to you; he

accordingly returns it, with many apologies for its having slipped his memory. You lend again, and it slips his memory again.

After many inquiries for a book which you had lent, you at last find, that it is lost. The person who borrowed it of you lent it to somebody else, he forgets who.

A set of books lent, and returned; one volume missing, for which the borrower apologizes most pathetically; he hopes, however, to find it. His hope is your

despair.

Your friend loves reading in bed; and your book, besides the various dislocations which it experiences in such an awkward situation, stands an enviable chance of receiving, and at length has the good fortune actually to receive, the whole overcharged contents of the snuffers; and although they are discharged, with the puff of an Eolus, from the open page to the bedside carpet, a wreck is left behind, which upon the reclosure of the volume, is ground to an impalpable powder; and, by some efforts of the finger to remove it, expanded into a jetty surface of considerable extent.

Another friend, who is likewise a borrower, is fond of accompanying his breakfast with reading, and your book comes in for that honour. A piece of hot roll, saturated with liquid butter, makes its transit in a line directly ver tical to the expanded pages; and the reader, or eater, or rather both, meaning perhaps to give the book that unction which it does not itself possess, by a gentle pressure causes a few soft drops to distil in the passage; or the alternate apprehension of the oleaginous nutriment, and the necessary evolution of the leaves, produce a beautiful specimen of mottled transparency.

Your book, which is embellished with a variety of exquisite plates, is lent to a friend, who has a large family of children. A morning is appointed for viewing the pictures, and the mother with her family is placed in a semicircle round the table. As the object, in such a state of things, cannot be seen from precisely the same point of view by all, a little urchin, just big enough to do mischief, and not big enough to be under discipline, situated at one of the terminating points of the crescent, and eager to have under his own immediate inspection what all the rest are admiring, caring as little as he understands about the laws

of mechanics, makes a vigorous snatch at the unfolded plate, and attains his object, by getting it just in the situation he wished; but the ponderous quarto is left behind.

A set of splendid volumes, full of beautiful coloured engravings, and bound in morocco, sent by the coach to a friend; but packed with such strength and compactness, that they might be thrown over a house without injury; sent back again, by the same conveyance, with a slight, careless covering of brown paper, having travelled in very intimate neighbourhood with a parcel of red herrings, upon whose yielding substance they have been pressed by the superincumbent weight of a lid, well loaded with passengers, that would just shut. The saline moisture has communicated to the precious volumes a hue and a fragrance which they will never lose.

I would address myself to the borrowers, and earnestly recommend it to them, as they value the interests of learning, and their own credit, to inculcate upon themselves, with redoubled diligence, the duties of care and honesty ; and particularly to cultivate the faculty of memory; which they will find to be useful in many instances. It were likewise much to be wished, that they would employ one particular day in the year in a careful scrutiny of their library, that they may satisfy themselves whether or not there be any stray volume detained prisoner, for the return of which the owner is sighing or groaning, in hopeless despair. In that case, let it be instantly restored.

LESSON CXVI.

Dialogue on keeping Promises.-JUVENILE MISCELLANY.

Eliza. I do not wish to go out this morning, mother, it is so cold; would you not like to have me read to you ? Mother. I should indeed like to hear you read; you know that always gives me pleasure. But why do you think of going out?

:

Eliza. I promised Sarah Lee, that I would call for her to go and see widow Harris, who is quite ill and Sarah's mother told her she would send some nice things to her, if she would carry them. I suppose Sarah will

go without me, and Mrs. Harris will have the things; and my going will make no difference you know.

Mother. Make no difference! did you not say you promised to go? and do you make thus light of your pro

mises?

Eliza. No, mamma, I should not, if it was of any consequence; but I do not see what good I shall do by going.

Mother. A promise is a promise, and as such is of the first consequence, and to be kept, because you have made it; this is the first and best reason for keeping a promise. You say it will make no difference; it will make a difference; and perhaps a great one. In the first place, Sarah may, and probably will, wait for you, perhaps, until it is too late to go; and her mother may not like to have her go alone at all. Then poor Mrs. Harris may suffer for the want of the comforting things, which Mrs. Lee is so kind as to provide for her. Then your kind friend Sarah will lose confidence in you, and not know what to expect or depend upon another time. But the most important thing of all, my dear, is, that you will get, and by repeated indulgence strengthen the habit of not keeping your promises; and you will certainly allow that this would be a very bad habit, and would be attended with many unpleasant consequences.

Eliza. Yes, mamma; but I would keep my promises when they are of consequence and break them only when it is of no consequence.

Mother. You cannot always tell when it is of no consequence; you may sometimes think it of no consequence to keep your promise, when the person, to whom you have made it, thinks differently. The only right way, and therefore the only safe and happy way, is to make only such promises, as you intend fully to keep.

Eliza. Sometimes I have made promises which I could not keep, and at others, promises, which, I think, even you would have thought proper to break. Suppose I had engaged the same thing to two persons, for the same time; how could I keep both my promises? Or suppose I had engaged to walk with some one, and it should rain violently, at the time appointed to go, would you not think it proper for me to stay at home?

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