Prompts with remembrance of a present God.
His presence, who made all so fair, perceived,
Makes all still fairer. As with him no scene
Is dreary, so with him all seasons please.

RELICS.-[IRVING.]

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1. My first visit was to the house where Shakspeare was born, and where, according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It is a small mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, a true nestling-place of genius, which seems to delight in hatching its offspring in by-corners.

2. The walls of its squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and conditions, from the prince to the peasant; and present a simple but striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind to the great poet of nature.

3. The house is shown by a garrulous old lady, in a frosty red face, lighted up by a cold, blue, anxious eye, and garnished with artificial locks of flaxen hair, curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds.

4. There was the shattered stock of the very matchlock with which Shakspeare shot the deer in his poaching exploits. There, too, was his tobacco box, which proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh; the sword also with which he played Hamlet; and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb!

5. There was an ample supply also of Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers of self-multiplication as the wood of the true cross; of which there is enough extant to build a ship of the line.

6. The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shakspeare's chair. It stands in the chimney-nook of a small gloomy chamber, just behind what was his father's shop. Here he may many a time have sat when a boy, watching the slowly revolving spit with all the longing of an urchin; or of an evening,' listening to the cronies and gossips of Stratford, dealing forth church-yard tales and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome times of England.

7. In this chair, it is the custom of every one that visits the house to sit; whether this be done with the hope of imbibing any of the inspiration of the bard, I am at a loss to say-I merely mention the fact; and mine hostess privately assured me, that, though built of solid oak, such was the fervent zeal of devotees, that the chair had to be new-bottomed at least once in three years.

8. It is worthy of notice also, in the history of this extraordinary chair, that it partakes something of the volatile nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto, or the flying chair of the Arabian enchanter; for, though sold some few years since to a northern princess, yet, strange to tell, it has found its way back again to the old chimney corner.

AVARICE AND RICHES.-[POPE.]

At length corruption, like a general flood
So long by watchful ministers withstood,
Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on,

Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun;
Statesman and patriot ply alike the stocks,

5

Peeress and butler share alike the box,

And judges job, and bishops bite the town,

And mighty dukes pack cards for half a crown.

See Britain sunk in lucre's solid charms,

And France revenged of Anne's and Edward's arms! 10

1 Modifies may have sat. 2 The auxiliary shall is understood.

'Twas no court-badge, great scrivener! fired' thy brain, Nor lordly luxury, nor city gain.

No, 'twas thy righteous end, ashamed to see
Senates degenerate," patriots disagree,"

And nobly wishing party-rage to cease,

To buy both sides, and give thy country peace.
"All this is madness," cries a sober sage;
But who, my friend, has reason in his rage ?
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
Less mad the wildest whimsey3 we can frame,
Than even that passion, if it has no aim;
For, though such motives' folly* you may call,

The folly's greater to have none at all.

15

20

Hear then the truth: 'Tis Heaven each passion sends, 25
And different men directs to different ends.

Extremes in nature equal good produce,
Extremes in man concur to general use.

Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow?
That power who bids the ocean ebb and flow;
Bids seed-time, harvest, equal course maintain,
Through reconciled extremes of drought and rain;
Builds life on death, on change duration founds,
And gives the eternal wheels to know their rounds.
Riches, like insects, when concealed they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly.
Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the poor;
This year a reservoir" to keep and spare,
The next a fountain, spouting through his heir,
In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst,
And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.

1 Rule XV., Rem. 5. 2 Rule XX. 3 Rule V., Rem. 5.
4 Rule XII. 5 Rule I.

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WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE?-[SIR WILLIAM JONES.]

What constitutes a State?

Not high-raised battlement,' or labored mound,
Thick wall, or moated gate;

Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,

5

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,

Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain,

Prevent the long-aimed blow,

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And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:

These constitute a State.

And sovereign Law, that State's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,

Sits Empress, crowning good, repressing ill;
Smit by her sacred frown,

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The fiend Discretion like a vapor sinks,

And e'en the all-dazzling Crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.

TO THE SHADE OF THOMSON.-[BURNS.]

While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood,
Unfolds her tender mantle green,
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,
Or tunes Eolian strains between ;

While Summer, with her matron grace,
Retreats to Dayburgh's cooling shade,
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade;

1 Rule V., Rem. 5. 2 Rule XIV.

5

While Autumn, benefactor kind,
By Tweed erects his aged head,
And sees, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed;
While maniac Winter rages o'er

The hills whence classic Yarrow flows,
Rousing the turbid torrent's roar,

Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows;

So long, sweet Poet of the year,

Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won,
While Scotia, with exulting tear,

Proclaims that Thomson was her son.

THE PURITANS.--[MACAULAY.]

1. The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know1 him, to serve1 him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence.

2. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions.

3. The difference between the greatest and meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed.

1 Rule IV., Rem. 4.